Russia May Block LinkedIn Over Personal-Data Law
November 10 2016 - 6:10AM
Dow Jones News
MOSCOW—Russia's communications regulator is threatening to block
professional social network LinkedIn Corp. in Russia if the company
loses a court battle for failure to comply with a controversial
personal-data law.
The communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, has been taking a
tougher stance on foreign companies that aren't complying with a
law that mandates them to keep Russians' personal data within the
country's borders.
In early August, a lower Russian court sided with Roskomnadzor,
saying that LinkedIn didn't comply with Russian law on two
counts—by not storing information about Russians on servers inside
the country, as well as by processing information about third
parties who aren't registered on the site and haven't signed the
company's user agreement.
A decision by the appellate court is expected Thursday, but
Roskomnadzor head Alexander Zharov said the agency wasn't singling
out the U.S.-based firm.
"We are planning to make [the dispute with LinkedIn] an
absolutely ordinary case," he said. "Since LinkedIn has ignored our
letters when we were inviting them to discuss the issue of
personal-data localization, and after a few letters [we] were
forced to go to court," he said.
A LinkedIn spokesperson said the company had asked for a meeting
with Roskomnadzor to discuss their data-localization request, but
declined to comment further on ongoing litigation.
Experts see the case as a crucial test of a new data-privacy
law. LinkedIn has become the first foreign company to publicly
clash with the regulator over the controversial law that took
effect on Sept. 1, 2015 that requires both foreign and local
companies to keep Russians' personal data on Russia-based
servers.
Since then Roskomnadzor checked 1,500 companies to make sure
they obey the data-localization law.
Russia has until now been postponing a showdown with a handful
of technology titans, including Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc.,
over installing data centers on Russian soil, handing an interim
victory to companies that have resisted a divisive new rule.
"I'm not going to name the names of the companies since this is
to a large extent commercial information but major internet giants
are in the process of complying with the law," Mr. Zharov also
said, indicating that it may be time for major foreign companies to
yield to the regulator's pressure.
"It looks like this is truly a signal for all other companies
that Roskomnadzor is quite determined [to make companies comply
with the data-localization law], said Evgeny Oreshin, a lawyer for
Goltsblat BLP.
Write to Olga Razumovskaya at olga.razumovskaya@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 10, 2016 06:55 ET (11:55 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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