January 22, 2019 12:12 AM
Russia’s internet regulator/censor claims Twitter and Facebook haven’t been processing Russian users’ data inside the country. That would be a violation of a 2015 law that blockchain advocates should be paying attention to.
Private Russian news agency Interfax reported today, January 21, that Roskomnadzor is taking administrative action against Facebook and Twitter. Roskomnadzor – translated to English as the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media – is both the country's telecommunications regulator and government censor[1].
Ostensibly at issue here is where Russian Twitter and Facebook users' data is stored. Russian law requires that its citizens' personal data be stored on servers within the country. The agency claims[2] it sent a letter on December 17 instructing the social media companies to localize their databases; when no "concrete plans[3]" were received, it announced it would move forward with administrative proceedings."
The referenced regulation, the New Data Protection Law, has been on the books since September 2015. Russia-based attorney Sergey Medvedev, writing for Thomson Reuters, summarizes[4] how the country amended the existing Personal Data Protection Act:
"Specifically, the New Data Protection Law introduces an obligation on all data operators to ensure the recording, systematisation, accumulation, storage, change and extraction of personal data of Russian citizens with the use of data centres located in the territory of the Russian Federation in the course of collection of relevant personal data of individuals, including via the internet."
The law also gives Roskomnadzor the power to block websites that don't follow it.
As other outlets have pointed out, last week, Facebook took down[5] Russia-based accounts that seemed similar to disinformation campaigns from the 2016 US election.
