PRESS: Russia economic ministry, antitrust want data law revised

MOSCOW, Jan 19 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Economic Development Ministry and the Federal Antimonopoly Service think that the data retention laws have to be amended, business daily Vedomosti reported on Thursday, quoting sources.

Connection operators see it unwise to store video and data on video views along with the whole traffic. The laws’ validity should be also delayed, the sources said.

President Vladimir Putin signed into law an anti-terrorist package, including the data retention laws and orders to the government, in the middle of 2016.

Under the laws, connection operators and Internet companies must store metadata for up to six months. Content of calls and exchanged messages must be stored by connection operators for three years and one year for Internet companies starting from July 1, 2018.

The unpopular laws provoked a voting on the Web site of the Russian Public Initiative and collected over 100,000 voices required to discuss the matter, which will be done later on Thursday by an expert working group of the federal level, headed by Open Government Affairs Minister Mikhail Abyzov.

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