On October 29, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed the amendments and addenda to the Criminal Code and the Administrative Liability Code.

In particular, Article 141-2 of the Criminal Code (violation of legislation on personal data) will now be stated as follows (Basic Value (BV) now stands at 270 thousand soums, or 25 USD):

“Illegal collection, systematization, storage, altering, making additions, use, provision, distribution, transfer, depersonalization and destruction of personal data, as well as non-compliance with the processing of personal data of citizens of Uzbekistan using information technologies, including on the world information network Internet, requirements for the collection, systematization and storage of personal data on technical means physically located on the territory of the Republic of Uzbekistan, and in the databases of personal data registered in the prescribed manner in the State Register of Personal Data Bases, committed after the application of an administrative penalty for the same actions shall be punishable with a fine from 100 to 150 BVs ​​(now up to 50 BVs) or deprivation of a certain right for up to 3 years or correctional labor for up to 2 years.

The same actions:

a) committed by prior conspiracy by a group of persons;

b) committed repeatedly or by a dangerous recidivist:

c) committed from mercenary or other base motives;

d) committed with the use of official position:

e) entailing grave consequences, -

shall be punishable with a fine from 150 to 200 BVs ​​(now - from 50 to 100 BVs) or correctional labor from two to three years, or restraint of liberty from 1 to 3 years, or imprisonment up to 3 years. "

the Article 46-2 of the ALC (violation of legislation on personal data) is set out in almost the same way, and the punishment is harshened.

“Illegal collection, systematization, storage, change, addition, use, provision, distribution, transfer, depersonalization and destruction of personal data, as well as non-compliance with the processing of personal data of citizens of the Republic of Uzbekistan using information technologies, including on the world information network Internet, requirements for the collection, systematization and storage of personal data on technical means physically located on the territory of the Republic of Uzbekistan, and in the databases of personal data registered in the prescribed manner in the State Register of Personal Data Bases ”.

Now, administrative liability for violation of this article entails a fine for citizens in the amount of 7 BVs (now - from 3 to 5 BVs), for officials - 50 BVs (now - from 5 to 10 BVs).

In May, the State Inspectorate for Control in the Sphere of Informatization and Telecommunications Uzkomnazorat ordered the owners of social networks Mail.ru Group / VK (VKontakte), Twitter and Tencent (WeChat) to comply with Article 27-1 of the Personal Data Law, that is, to post servers on which personal data of citizens of Uzbekistan are processed within the country.

In early July, Uzkomnazorat restricted access to TikTok, Twitter, VKontakte, WeChat and the Skype messenger due to the storage and processing of personal data of Uzbek citizens outside Uzbekistan. Against the backdrop of restrictions in Uzbekistan, the popularity of mobile VPN applications, which are used to access blocked sites, has grown dramatically.

After the introduction of amendments to the legislation, companies that own the aforementioned social networks and messengers can be fined (up to 50 BVs or 13.5 million soums) and prosecuted (a fine of up to 200 BVs or 54 million soums) for violating the law on personal data.

The changes will take effect after three months, that is, January 30, 2022.