Poroshenko not vetoes bills violating bank secrecy

President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has signed the bills No. 3628 and No. 3629 which violate the bank secrecy, according to the human rights activists.

This is stated on the website of the Parliament of Ukraine.

December 24, 2015, the Parliament of Ukraine passed the bill No. 3628 on the amendments to the certain legislative acts of Ukraine (regarding financial stabilization of the state and improvement of certain provisions of the social policy) and the bill No. 3629 on the amendments to the Budget Code of Ukraine (regarding coordination between the Budget Code and the amendments to industry-specific and tax legislation). The bills were passed despite the negative conclusions of the Main Scientific Expert Commission.

Earlier, the human rights activists argued that not all the parliamentary committees had managed to prepare their findings on the documents. In addition, there was no comprehensive discussion while the findings had been being elaborated.

The bill No. 3629 stipulates that the Finance Ministry of Ukraine may obtain the information containing bank secrets and personal information to exercise control over the compliance with the budget legislation within the monitoring of pensions, allowances, benefits, subsidies and other social payments. To receive and process such personal data, the Finance Ministry shall not need the consent of the private individuals.

Under the bills, the Finance Ministry shall have unusual functions, particularly, those of monitoring the social payments and their transfers to the individuals. The legislative initiatives do not clearly specify the list of authorities which may obtain the information related to the bank secrecy. The human rights activists claim that the documents do not determine what personal data the authorities can have access to. The bills do not define what agency should collect the personal data, how the data should be stored and how it could be used.

The provisions of the bills No. 3628 and No. 3629 contradict the international obligations of Ukraine, namely Article 8 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data, the human rights defenders are concerned.

The two bills are authored by incumbent Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk.