SBU: Yandex transferred personal data of Ukrainians to Russian intelligence services

Yandex management transferred personal data of Ukrainian citizens to Russian intelligence services, said in a statement . the Security Service of Ukraine

“Law enforcement officers established that the company’s management illegally collected, hoarded and transferred personal data of Ukrainian citizens to Russia,” the report says. As the department clarifies, Yandex transferred personal data, including information about “occupation, lifestyle, home, work, leisure, sources and amounts of income, telephone numbers, email addresses and accounts on social networks.”

According to the SBU, department operatives found that the Russian special services were transferred, among other things, information about civil servants, law enforcement officers and special agencies, military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as units participating in the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine.

“The information was transferred to the special services of the Russian Federation for planning, organizing and conducting reconnaissance. sabotage, information and subversive operations in our country,” the department notes.

Today, SBU officers conducted searches at Yandex offices in Kiev and Odessa in connection with a criminal case of treason (Article 111 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). As a result, servers and documentation were confiscated and will be sent for examination. “Experts will also analyze the redirection of Ukrainian users’ traffic to Russian servers, as well as check the coordination of illegal activities from the territory of the Russian Federation,” the SBU adds.

On May 16, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a decree introducing sanctions against Yandex, the social networks VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, involving the blocking of these sites.