Protection of Personal Information in Big Data Era

The thesis is dedicated to the problems of legal protection of personal information in Big Data Era. For the purpose of the thesis, various approaches to the legal protection of personal information on the basis of privacy and personal data protection laws of the United States, the EU and Russia are studied, and similarities and differences in the approaches to regulating the protection of personal information in these countries are revealed. The influence of the technologies of large-scale data analytics on the principles of protection of personal information, underlying the legislations of the examined countries, is analyzed. The features of "Big Data", which determine the huge potential importance of "Big Data" for both society as a whole and individuals, are revealed. Potential threats to the current mechanisms of protection of personal information related to the development of "Big Data" are identified. Then, the approaches to solving these problems are analysed. Based on the results of the analysis, it is concluded that the Russian approach to regulation of protection of personal information in the era of "Big Data" is primarily related to the regulation of access to such data sets, in the United States priority is given to protection of market interests, in the EU — to protection of individuals. At the same time, a lot of issues related to the use of Big Data technologies in these legal systems remain unresolved.