Alexey Navalny’s team will no longer collect any personal data from participants in its “Smart Vote” initiative, Team Navalny CEO Ivan Zhdanov told the television network Dozhd on Thursday, September 9.

Zhdanov said that Team Navalny is testing this policy gradually and plans to refrain from collecting any personal data from “Smart Vote” users in the future, “knowing the threat level that now exists.”

According to Zhdanov, Navalny’s team has been working on his mobile app, as well as Telegram bots, “in order to get away from this very system of collecting email addresses that we’ve become accustomed to in the last ten years.”

In mid-August, police in Moscow and other Russian cities called or visited the homes of hundreds of Navalny supporters, whose personal information had leaked online. According to the Russian BBC, police officials carried out checks on more than a thousand Navalny supporters at the request of Putin’s administration.
Russia’s federal censor blocked Navalny’s website and more than 40 other sites linked to his outlawed Anti-Corruption Foundation, including the “Smart Vote” website and Navalny’s mobile app, which includes a “Smart Vote” function.
In September, the Moscow Arbitration Court banned Google and Yandex from showing search results for the phrase “umnoe golosovanie” (Smart Vote). This came in connection with a lawsuit filed by a wool company that won a Russian patent to the “Smart Vote” brand. Yandex planned to appeal the ruling.

Team Navalny to stop collecting ‘Smart Vote’ users’ personal data