Maria Samartseva, Counsel and Head of the IP litigation practice at Rybalkin, Gortsunyan, Dyakin and Partners (RGD), took part at the Pravo.ru conference on information and personal data protection as both speaker and session moderator.

The event brought together experts in intellectual property rights protection and cyber security, represented by legal professionals from the leading law firms, regulatory authorities and major IT companies.

Maria Samartseva's expertise covers several large topics starting from the problems of ensuring the security of personal data and information, ending with regulatory issues related to the processing, storaging, transferring and destruction of data which made it possible to act as both – moderator and speaker. In her speech, Maria touched upon the most important topic of determining the criteria for establishing guilt, liability, and compensation for damages to victims of data leakage due to the imperfection of the critical infrastructure of IT companies.

“Personal data protection and information security is perhaps one of the most important issues for the industry, if not the most important. However, a new negative trend shows that such data leaks from Russia’s major IT companies and popular online services are organized not only to extract commercial benefits from the sale of information, but are more aimed at causing maximum damage to the businesses and customers. We believe that changing the current state of affairs is a top priority for digital security experts and related legal professionals. We will expand our efforts to motivate IT companies by insisting on turnover penalties. Thanks to such events as this one, we have the opportunity to initiate a public dialogue with the industry. We believe that this dialogue could lead us all to the most efficient and balanced solution”, said Maria Samartseva, Counsel and Head of IP litigation practice at Rybalkin, Gortsunyan, Dyakin and Partners law firm (RGD).