European legal standards of personal data protection
Authors: Rizenko O.V. 
Published: December 2024

The article considers the main European legal acts that ensure the protection of personal data and confidential information about a person. After all, taking into account the European integration direction of Ukraine’s development, the experience of legal regulation of the institution of personal data on the European continent is important for our country. It was emphasized that the rapid technological development and globalization lead to the emergence of new difficulties for the protection of personal data: the scale of collection and sharing of personal data has increased significantly; technologies allow both private companies and public bodies to use personal data on an unprecedented scale in order to implement their activities and individuals are increasingly providing access to personal information to the public and on a global scale. It is emphasized that the protection of personal data as one of the fundamental human rights is currently guaranteed by an effective combination of various EU legal instruments, in particular the founding treaties of the EU and the EU Charter, which are acts of primary EU law, as well as acts of secondary EU law. The Council of Europe Convention «On the Protection of Individuals in Relation to Automated Processing of Personal Data» dated January 28, 1981 No. 108 was analyzed as the first international legally binding document that deals exclusively with issues of personal data protection, which outlines the key principles of personal data processing , the rights of a person in connection with the processing of his personal data, basic norms regarding cross-border data transfer. The author emphasizes the importance of Ukraine’s international legal obligations arising from the AA and the EU candidate status, which has once again raised the issue of the need to update and implement the latest EU standards in the field of personal data protection into national legislation. It is noted that rapid technological development and globalization lead to new challenges for personal data protection. The scale of collection and sharing of personal data has increased significantly. Technologies allow both private companies and public authorities to use personal data on an unprecedented scale to carry out their activities. Individuals are increasingly providing access to personal information to the public and on a global scale. The author emphasized the importance of Ukraine’s international legal obligations arising from the AA and the acquisition of the EU candidate status, which once again raised the issue of the need to update and implement the latest EU standards in the field of personal data protection into national legislation.
The result of the development of a joint pan­European regulatory act in the field of regulating the processing and protection of personal data was the adoption of the General Regulation on the Protection of Personal Data with the aim of adapting the rules of personal data protection to the era of digital technologies, the main substantive novelties of this legal act were determined. The main tasks of the European Council for the Protection of Personal Data have been clarified.