The head of Roskomnadzor said that the American social networks Facebook and Twitter for nine months should localize the personal data bases of their Russian users.
The head of the department, Alexander Zharov, made this statement, commenting on the fact that companies were fined in Russia. He said:
“The trial took place, the companies were fined. Currently, they have been given time to fulfill the requirements of the legislation of the Russian Federation. Nine month".
Twitter and Facebook were fined for failure to implement the law on the localization of personal data bases of Russian users in the territory of the Russian Federation. Roskomnadzor considered that the companies provided a “formal” answer without answering on the merits – that is, without opening where the user data is stored. For this, the social networks were fined 3,000 rubles each.
In several countries around the world, laws have been passed that the personal data of their citizens should be stored on servers physically located in the country. Including this requires from Internet companies Russia.
In March, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company will not store user-owned information in countries where human rights are being violated. He did not name the criteria for defining such countries that the service will use, but it is obvious that we are talking about, including, Russia.
In a report on human rights in the world in 2018, the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch stated:
- The Russian authorities in 2018 continued to suppress the political opposition and their critics;
- presidential elections were not competitive and fair;
- critical voices on the Internet faced reprisals, in particular, through legislation on extremism;
- detentions of protesters continued;
- The Kremlin did not prevent the Chechen authorities from persecuting human rights activists and representatives of the LGBT community;
- the decriminalization of domestic violence created additional threats to life;
- the authorities were forced to admit the facts of torture in the colonies;
- continued repression against the Crimean Tatar population of the Crimea, and so on.
The first fines are symbolic, but fines for companies that do not comply with Russian laws can grow exponentially if they ignore the requirements of the regulator, and this is what they (at least for now) intend to do, violating the law "On Personal Data citizens of the Russian Federation ".
The draft law on “sovereign Runet”, which the State Duma of Russia adopted in the third reading , provides for blocking websites that violate the law “On the personal data of citizens of the Russian Federation”.
The law will come into force in November 2019 . In the worst case, it threatens to block Twitter and Facebook if they do not comply with the requirements of the regulator. Judging by the statement of the head of Roskomnadzor, blocking may occur in nine months.
Publication date 17/04/2019
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