VKontakte in the answer for data

The activist filed a lawsuit against the social network for the illegal transfer of data to the police

The head of the headquarters of Alexei Navalny in Ufa Lilia Chanysheva filed a lawsuit against the social network VKontakte in the Smolninsky court of St. Petersburg. This is the first time that the user, in a way, sue with the social network due to the provision of personal data by the law enforcement agency. Chanysheva accuses Vkontakte of providing her personal information to the Center for Combating Extremism (CPE) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Bashkiria without legal grounds.

According to the lawyer of the Agora International Human Rights Group Damir Gainutdinov, who represents the interests of Chanysheva, the formal basis for filing a claim was the incorrect design of the request from the EE center. In the text, employees of the Center refer to the laws “On the Police” and “On Operational Investigation”. The first law determines the conditions under which representatives of the department can request user data. This can happen either within the framework of an already initiated criminal case, either as part of an administrative offense, or as part of an audit of cases referred to the competence of the police. None of these conditions was met in case of requesting data from Chanysheva.

“Often, law enforcement agencies receive information not within the framework of the initiated criminal cases with the receipt of a court decision, but in the framework of the so-called operational-search activity, as part of a certificate,” says the leading lawyer of the public organization of Roskomasvobod, Sarkis Darbinian. - Personal information is issued, the right to the secret of communication, to the secret of private life, is limited, is violated by the constitutional principle that stages that such a restriction can be carried out only on the basis of a judicial act.

It turned out to be incorrect not only the content, but also the form of the request, which was sent by e -mail, although the regulation requires the provision of the same request in paper form. Chanyshev is ironic that the response of VKontakte leadership contained a threat:

"If you do not duplicate the requests in writing, we will stop supplying you with information."

However, the data was still provided 12 days after the request. Moreover, not only information from the page of the supporters of Navalny, but also from the pages of several other administrators of the VKontakte group “Navalny team | Ufa ”, the data of which were requested by employees of the EE Center.

At the same time, the investigation of administrative violations regarding the law “On Personal Data” does not belong to the competence of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. “In this case, the EE center was covered by the law“ On Personal Data ”, which belongs to the competence of Roskomnadzor. The police do not violate in the framework of violations of the legislation on personal data, this is not its field, ”explains Gainutdinov.

The data obtained by the Center “E” were redirected to Roskomnadzor, which in turn suspected Chanyshev in violation of the law “On Personal Data”: supposedly she collected the information of other members of the VKontakte group. Despite the penalty awarded to Chanysheva under Article 19.7 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, the actions of the CPE and VKontakte, according to the lawyers of the Agora, remain unlawful.

The simplicity with which the leadership of this social network provides information to law enforcement officers leads to the fact that most of the “extremist” cases are starting precisely on the basis of the information provided by the VKontakte security service. The social network “goes to interaction even if it does not have the right and when it could appeal these requests,” said the IT consultant of the corruption fund Vladislav Zdolnikov.

At the same time, representatives of VKontakte insist that interaction with law enforcement agencies is built in the company exclusively within the framework of current legislation. ” They do not comment on the lawsuit, explaining this by the fact that they did not receive official notifications about him.

VKontakte, owned by Mail.Ru Group, published a document in early October, which explained the principles of processing and preserving personal data, as well as interaction with law enforcement agencies. It proclaimed the principles of openness and transparency, as well as the exceptional legality of the company's actions in relation to personal data of its users.

In the summer of this year, the leadership of the social network promised to provide statistics on requests received from law enforcement agencies to provide personal information. “In the process of collecting information - manual processing structuring all requests and preparing data for publication takes a long time. But we consider the priority task a real solution to the problem and the prevention of such cases. ”

A lawsuit against a social network may create a precedent in Russian judicial practice. If the court makes a decision in favor of Chanysheva, this may at least hit the reputation of VKontakte, and at least to provoke changes in the current practice of providing users to security officials.