The church called for criminal penalties for the leakage of personal data

MOSCOW, August 26 – PARAME. Personal data requires stricter legislative protection, especially for DNA tests, biomedical research and medical records, the punishment for leaking such data should be criminal, Archpriest Alexander Abramov, secretary of the Synodal Commission on Bioethics, told RIA Novosti.

“We see that companies that collect and process personal data, in the event of a leak, often get off with minimal fines. DNA data is exactly the same personal data. My opinion is that there should be criminal liability for violating the regime for storing biomedical data. states are its people,” Abramov said.

He urged experts and the public to “start a broad discussion” to determine which data should be especially protected by law, because now “the conversation on the topic of personal data protection in the field of biomedical technologies is in its infancy.”

“It seems to me that all data that allows you to identify a person should be especially protected: first of all, his DNA, as well as data on diseases, medical studies that he underwent. I believe that personal data, including biomedical research data, should be legally equated with official secrets with the appropriate rules for storing, depersonalizing and restricting access to this information,” the expert explained.

He noted that when providing medical services, a person is offered to sign a data processing agreement, which gives access to them to third parties and companies, but “informed consents are usually issued for an unreasonably long period”, and “the circle of persons who have access to these data is not clearly defined. The priest stressed that the misuse of biomedical personal data “leads to disastrous consequences.”

“We read about how well-known companies leak data on blood tests with information about human diseases. It is very easy to imagine discrimination based on the results of published genetic studies. Someone will simply not be hired because of a tendency, for example, to hereditary diseases. “Some companies force employees to hand over biomaterial to form a bank of medical data. What is the mode of storage and access, what happens to them after they are fired, and what is the purpose of such manipulations? Who guarantees that this will not be published anywhere?” – concluded the interlocutor of the agency.