Russia Fines Facebook $47 Over Citizens’ Data Privacy Dispute

Russia has fined Facebook with 3,000 rubles, roughly $47, for
not complying with the country’s controversial Data Localization
law.

It’s bizarre and unbelievable, but true.

In December last year, Russian Internet watchdog Roskomnadzor sent
notifications to Twitter and Facebook asking them to provide
information about the location of servers that store the personal
data of its citizens.

Roskomnadzor – also known as the Federal Service for Supervision
in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies, and Mass
Communications – is Russian telecommunications watchdog that runs a
huge blacklist of websites banned in Russia.

Though the social media platforms had one month to reply, they
choose not to disclose this information, as a result of which
Moscow’s Tagansky District Court imposed 3,000 rubles fine on
Twitter^[1] last week and the same
on Facebook^[2] today.

The fine is the minimum that Russian courts can impose on
companies for violating Article 19.7 of the Administrative Code of
the Russian Federation, i.e., failure to provide information. The
maximum amount of the fine under this article is 5,000
rubles.

In July 2014, Russia approved amendments to the Russian Personal
Data Law which came into force in 1st September 2015, under
which foreign tech companies were required to store the personal
data of its citizens within the country’s borders.

Although the fine imposed on Facebook and Twitter may seem
nothing, further refusal to comply with the country’s data
localization law could result in much more serious repercussions,
like Russia can ban social media companies, just like it banned LinkedIn in
late 2016^[4].

Russia is not the first country to enforce such law on foreign
tech companies. In May 2016, Iran also imposed new
regulations^[5] on all foreign messaging
and social media apps to move ‘data and activity’ associated with
Iranian citizens onto servers in Iran within one year.

China also passed amendments for data
localization^[6] in late 2016 that would
force “critical information infrastructure operators” to store its
citizens’ data within the nation’s borders.

^[3]