Personal data as a civil law category

In the context of the development of information technologies, there is an urgent need to strengthen the protection of personal data, including by actively involving them in the sphere of civil law regulation and by expanding the application of the private law enforcement mechanism. Purpose: to substantiate the possibility of legal recognition of personal data as a civil law category and to identify the main directions of the legislation development in this area. Methods: methods of comparison, description, interpretation, formal and dialectical logic, legal-dogmatic and the method of interpretation of legal norms. Results: the research gives an opportunity to reveal the characteristics of personal data, which allow legally recognizing them as intangible benefits, acting as objects of civil rights; to establish the ratio of the right of a citizen to the protection of personal data and his right to privacy as independent, but intersecting concepts; to substantiate the role of the Federal Law «On Personal Data» as a law determining the basic conceptual apparatus in the field of personal data; to propose a conceptual approach to the formation of the legal regime of personal data by identifying general provisions and establishing specific legal regimes.