Apple fined 2 mln rubles in Russia first time over refusal to localize Russian users' data - court

MOSCOW. July 12 (Interfax) - A magistrate's court in Moscow's Tagansky district has found Apple Inc. guilty of the refusal to localize personal data of Russian users on Russian territory, an Interfax correspondent reported from the courtroom.

"Apple Inc. is found guilty under Part 8 Article 13.11 of the Russian Code of Administrative Offenses (the failure of an operator gathering personal data to comply with the duty to record, systematize, accumulate and store personal data of Russian citizens in databases in the Russian territory) and is fined 2 million rubles," the judge said.

This is the first motion filed against Apple Inc. in connection with such an administrative offense.

Apple representatives told the court that the corporation is not responsible for gathering personal data in Russia. "The party gathering data in Russia is not being held responsible. The motion has been brought against Apple Inc., while Apple Distribution is in charge of data processing," the lawyer said.

Therefore, the defense asked not to hold Apple Inc. accountable.

The Roskomnadzor representative disagreed and told the court that Apple Inc. administers the Apple website accumulating the data. "There is no information about other legal entities on the company website, so we deem the motion to be drafted correctly," the representative said.

The Russian office of Apple Inc., Apple Rus LLC, formally notified Roskomnadzor in December 2018 about localizing Russian users' data in Russia and was added to the register of personal data operators.

Roskomnadzor said earlier that about 600 offices of foreign companies, including Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, PayPal, Booking and LG, had localized the storage of Russian users' data.

The LinkedIn social network has been blocked in Russia for breaching the localization requirement. Moscow's Tagansky District Court upheld the respective motion from Roskomnadzor in 2016.