Twitter may localize personal data of Russians in the middle of next year / E. Razumny / Vedomosti

By mid-2018, the American microblogging service Twitter plans to localize the personal data of its Russian users in Russia, according to a statement from Roskomnadzor. The agency cites a letter from Twitter Vice President for Public Policy in the EMEA region Sinead McSweeney to Roskomnadzor Director Alexander Zharov, in which she wrote that the company is currently deciding what data about Russian citizens can be stored in Russia.

The new version of the law on personal data, which has been in effect since September 1, 2015, requires storing and processing personal data of Russians on Russian territory. Personal data refers to all data about Russian citizens that is used when registering on websites, making online purchases, sending emails, etc. The law describes them as “any information that relates directly or indirectly to a specific or identifiable individual.”

Roskomnadzor has been regularly discussing the localization of Russian users' data with Twitter management since 2014. The agency reminded Twitter about the need to store it in the country in January 2016, according to a statement from Roskomnadzor. The regulator analyzed Twitter's user agreement and privacy policy and came to the conclusion that the company processes personal data of Russians and is an operator of personal data. Consequently, the localization requirement under the law is fully applicable to it. Roskomnadzor also drew Twitter's attention to the fact that these documents were not available in Russian at the beginning of 2016, which prevents Russian users who do not speak other languages from accessing their content.

Twitter has now translated both documents into Russian. According to the privacy policy, the user provides Twitter with their name, username, email address, or phone number. Plus, the user can provide a short biography, location, website address, date of birth, or image. Plus, public information includes published "tweets" (short messages on Twitter), the metadata they contain (such as the date and time of publication), and the client application used to publish. The service assumes that "most of the information you provide to us through Twitter is information you ask us to make publicly available."

There are examples of localization of personal data of Russian clients. In the summer of 2015, it became known about the intention of the Chinese online retailer Alibaba to place its data in the Moscow data center of the company Linxdatacenter. And the data of Russian clients of the South Korean electronics manufacturer Samsung moved to the Moscow data center DataPro. There are also opposite examples. On November 17 last year, Roskomnadzor, by decision of the Tagansky Court, added the social network LinkedIn to the register of violators of the rights of personal data subjects and sent a notice to telecom operators to block it. The network collects data of Russian users, the Moscow City Court decided. Roskomnadzor promised to stop blocking the social network if the company moves servers with data of Russian users to Russia.

Vedomosti's request on Twitter remained unanswered.

Twitter to Localize Russians' Personal Data in a Year