The Concept of Personal Data as a Subject of Crime

The article examines the criminal and legal significance of personal data as the subject of a crime. The relevance of the topic is justified by the fact that personal data is being transformed into a highly liquid resource, which provokes an increase in cybercrime, as well as their systemic role in the commission of other crimes. The central problem of the study is the imperfection of the legal definition of personal data, borrowed from related branches of law, which is not fully suitable for the purposes of criminal law. As a result of the analysis, the author comes to the conclusion that the key essential feature of personal data is their ability to identify a specific individual. On this basis, an author’s definition for criminal law is proposed.: This is information related to a specific person and allows them to be identified. The paper also systematizes the basic principles of lawful processing of such data.