State Duma to discuss bill on fine amounting up to 18 mln rubles for telecom providers for violations in personal data storage in Russia
MOSCOW. July 17 (Interfax) - The State Duma Committee on State Building and Legislation has recommended passing at first reading a bill proposing punishing telecom providers breaching the requirements of personal data storage using databases localized in Russia with a fine up to 18 million rubles.
The State Duma is expected to hold the first reading of the bill on July 24, a source in the State Duma administration told Interfax.
The bill, which was submitted by a group of United Russia deputies, proposes adding to the Russian Code of Administrative Violations a new provision introducing fines for "non-fulfilment by an operator in personal data collection, including via the Internet, of the duty to ensure recording, systematization, accumulation, storage, updating (changes), removal of personal data of citizens of the Russian Federation using databases located on the territory of the Russian Federation, which is envisaged by the Russian legislation on personal data."
Such violation will be punishable by an administrative fine in an amount of 30,000 rubles to 50,000 rubles for citizens, 200,000 rubles to 500,000 rubles for officials, and 2 to 6 million rubles for legal entities.
Repeat violations could be punishable by a fine in an amount of 50,000 rubles to 100,000 rubles for citizens, 500,000 rubles to one million rubles for officials, and 6 to 18 million rubles for legal entities.
Roskomnadzor sent Facebook and Twitter demands for the provision of information on the localization of Russian user databases in Russia in late December 2018. However, the companies' responses, according to Roskomnadzor head Alexander Zharov, "did not contain specific information on localization or over what kind of period of time such localization of databases will take place."
Administrative protocols were later made against the companies based on the article dealing with failure to provide or late provision to an organization authorized by the federal laws to exercise state supervision information whose provision is envisaged by law. The violation is punishable by a fine in an amount of 3,000 rubles to 5,000 rubles for legal entities.
The law on the localization of Russians' databases on servers inside of Russia was signed on December 31, 2014 and took effect on September 1, 2015. Any Russian or foreign company oriented toward working with Russian users has to ensure recording, systematization, accumulation, storage, and updating of Russians' date using databases located on the territory of Russia. It envisages fines for failure to fulfil this requirement and authorizes Roskomnadzor to block user access to violating services in court.
The magistrate court of the Moscow Tagansky District on April 5 fined Twitter 3,000 rubles, and Facebook was fined the same amount on April 12. A representative of Facebook did not show up in court.
The social networking site LinkedIn has already been blocked in Russia for violating this law. The Moscow Tagansky District Court granted a relevant law filed by Roskomnadzor in 2016. The issue of localization of Russian citizens' data on the territory of Russia has been discussed with Facebook since 2015.