Report: Russian ombudsman Titov asks Putin to veto data storage bills

MOSCOW, Jul 6 (PRIME) -- Russian business ombudsman Boris Titov has asked President Vladimir Putin to reject bills obliging telecom operators and Internet companies to store data on users’ activities and exchanged content, which would mean heavy expenses, business daily RBC said Wednesday on its Web site.

“According to experts’ estimates, the proposed pack of decisions does not comply with the task it is aimed at,” Titov said in a letter to Putin.

The initiative will result in an unbearable financial burden on operators, while the use of unstructured information will be very inefficient.

“Moreover, gathering, recording and processing of the information to be stored is fraught with a possible leak of data, related to activities of state employees, businessmen and other citizens of the country,” Titov said.

The proposed rules on a disclosure of keys to decode messages embed cyberthreats for national security, business and lives of citizens, the ombudsman said.

The bills were earlier approved by parliament and is now waiting for Putin signature to become law.

Under the bills, operators must store information on calls, text messages, photos, sounds and video exchange on the country’s territory for three years and content of talks and correspondence for up to six months. Internet companies must keep this information for one year.

One of the bills’ authors, deputy Irina Yarovaya, head of the security committee at the State Duma, the parliament’s lower house, said on Monday the antiterrorist bills do not impose precise parameters for information storage, but the government is vested with a right to decide on the matter within two years.

If approved, the initiative will come in force in July 2018.

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