Yandex says law on keys share can apply without user privacy breach

MOSCOW, Jun 5 (PRIME) -- Russian Internet company Yandex understands the importance of a law obliging it to hand over the encryption keys to decode messages and thinks it can be respected without breaching user privacy, a company spokesperson told PRIME late on Tuesday.

“Media reported today that Yandex was addressed with a request to hand over the encryption keys…The law speaks about provision of information ‘necessary to decode messages’, and it does not follow that the keys must be submitted to decode the whole traffic,” the spokesperson said.

“The law’s aim is to protect security interests, and we completely share the importance of this aim. At that execution of the law is possible without infringement of privacy of user data.

“We think it’s important to keep a balance between safety and privacy of users and take into consideration the principles of equal applicability of regulation to all market participants.”

Media reported that the Federal Security Service had asked Yandex to provide it with the encryption keys of Yandex.Mail and Yandex.Disk, but the company refused since the keys can give access to user passwords to the whole Yandex ecosystem.

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