The paper offers an overview of the discussions that took place at two of the panels that were held within the framework of the V St. Petersburg International Legal Forum on 28-29 May 2015. They brought together lawyers and academics in the field of museum studies who became actively engaged in the discussion on the elimination of legal barriers to access to the world cultural heritage. The lawyers and policy-makers gathered at the other panel were set on finding a legal response to the challenges of the global information progress, first of all to the problem of protecting personal data.