Watchdog to ask Facebook, Twitter about data localization in Dec

SOCHI, Sep 18 (PRIME) -- The Russian communications service will send letters in mid-December to Facebook and Twitter with inquiries whether the U.S. giants respect the law obliging Internet companies to store personal data of Russians on local servers, the authority’s Director Alexander Zharov said on Tuesday.

Twitter earlier promised the watchdog to localize data of Russian users in July–December, Zharov told reporters.

“As the second half of the year expires, I set myself the date of December 15, I’ll write the letter: tell me where you keep data. They’ll answer me something. I’ll do the same regarding Facebook. I’ll do it, as I promised, by the end of the year. As far as I know, they’re carrying out this work,” he said.

“In essence, it will be a check. We never check them by tools. We come to an owner of server capacities and ask if they have a contract with Twitter. Then it’s not our job. It’s the task of those in charge of intelligence activities, if they think data leak or are not localized and so forth.”

In late February, Zharov said that the service will check Twitter in 2018 for data localization, and scrutiny of Facebook will be more comprehensive, including not only personal data localization, but also deletion of illegal content to respect the law.

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