The largest Russian IT companies have asked the Ministry of Digital Development to change the rules for working with anonymized personal data. Currently, they continue to be considered personal even after processing, which forces developers to obtain citizen consent and comply with additional restrictions.
The initiative was sent by the Association of Big Data, which includes Avito, Sber, Rostelecom, Yandex, HH, VK, and other companies. It proposes allowing the use of data without human consent for the development, training, and application of AI — but only after processing with privacy-enhancing technologies.
Such methods allow storing and analyzing information without the possibility of identifying a specific person. The association believes that the law does not yet distinguish reliable anonymization from intermediate processing, so even protected datasets formally remain under the same restrictions.
Companies propose allowing the new regime only with a minimal risk of identity disclosure, processing within Russia, and exclusively by Russian organizations. They also want to create an institute of accredited "trusted intermediaries" for storing such datasets.
Market participants explain the initiative by the lack of quality data for AI. Most datasets remain within large ecosystems, and companies' own datasets are no longer sufficient. Access to anonymized industry, medical, and behavioral data can accelerate the creation of specialized models without disclosing information about specific individuals.