Deputy PM Dvorkovich to hold meeting on data retention laws Fri

MOSCOW, Feb 16 (PRIME) -- Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich will hold a meeting on the controversial data retention laws on Friday to discuss their technical implementation and analyze final estimates of companies’ costs, a spokesperson for the Open Government said late on Wednesday.

An expert group headed by Open Government Affairs Minister Mikhail Abyzov, recommended the government hold additional consultations with connection operators, distributors of information in the Internet, the Industry and Trade Ministry, the Interior Ministry, the Federal Security Service and the Prosecutor General’s Office.

“The expert group … supported the president’s course to strengthen terrorism fight and found it inadmissible to abolish the most important antiterrorist law. Discussion of the clause of legislation regarding data retention will be continued in the government,” the spokesperson said.

President Vladimir Putin signed into law an antiterrorist package, including the data retention laws and orders to the government in 2016.

The laws oblige connection operators and Internet companies to store content of calls and messages for up to six months from July 1, 2018. Metadata must be stored by connection operators for three years and one year for Internet companies from July 20, 2016.

Internet companies are also obliged to provide the Federal Security Service with keys in case of additional encoding of messages.

The communications ministry is completing amendments to the data retention laws to reduce the volume of stored information, which can cut operators’ expenses to 100 billion rubles from 5 trillion rubles.

The expert group also decided that voice traffic and text messages should be primarily stored, and they will account for 1–4.5% of the total volume expected to be aggregated and stored for six months. Excessive data, like Internet video and IPTV, accounting for 80% of traffic, will not be stored.

(56.7719 rubles – U.S. $1)

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