The data of clients of foreign taxi services Yandex is stored in Russia. The FSB will have access to them - Meduza

Data from the Yandex taxi service is stored only in Russian data centers. This also applies to information about trips outside the country, found out Meduza . From September 1, the FSB will have round-the-clock access to this data.

In total, as RBC writes , Yandex has three data centers - in the Moscow, Ryazan and Vladimir regions. Another one is being built in Kaluga. However, before the start of a full-scale war in Ukraine in February 2022, according to Meduza, some of this information was stored in the Yandex data center in the city of Mäntsälä in Finland. In this country, the taxi service operates under the Yango brand.

The Office of the Data Protection Ombudsman (DPA) of Finland issued an urgent order in which it temporarily prohibited the transfer of any personal data of foreign service clients to Russia. This ban will be in effect from September 1 to November 30, 2023.

“The information collected in the Yango taxi app may include, for example, customer location information and taxi ride address. The Finnish DPA considers that Yango cannot protect personal data as required by EU law following legislative reform in Russia,” the order says.

Correspondence between Yandex employees and management, which was obtained by Meduza, states that “there is no physical or logical division [into the international and Russian parts]” of the company.

In addition to Finland, taxis from Yandex also operate in more than twenty countries around the world. Including in Israel, Norway, Finland, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Armenia.

“The array contains data on taxis in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Georgia and other places where Russians left after the start of the war. This is a threat, I would say, more significant than access to data on Finland, Norway and Algeria,” said former Yandex technology director Grigory Bakunov.

Thus, Georgia has repeatedly refused to allow independent Russian journalists and opposition-minded citizens into the country. And Kyrgyzstan, for example, deported anti-war activist Alexei Rozhkov, who was put on the federal wanted list in Russia. Activists Alena Krylova and Lev Skoryakin were also detained there and sent to pre-trial detention.

From September 1, the FSB will receive round-the-clock remote access to the databases of taxi aggregators, which are included in the register of organizers of information dissemination. in early July The corresponding decree was signed by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin . Those services that are not included in the register will have to provide information at the request of the intelligence service within three to ten business days from the date of the request. Meduza clarifies that at the moment, of the Russian taxi aggregators, only Yandex Go is included in this register.

Thus, from September 1, the FSB will receive unlimited access to data such as: IP address, device identifier, phone model and operating system used, information about the browser or mobile application. In addition, security forces will know the name, phone number, email address, banking information, comments, as well as travel addresses of Yandex users.

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