WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter fined 36 million rubles in Russia

On Aug 26 in Russia, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter were fined a total of 36 million rubles for violating the law on the localization of data of Russian users. This was reported by the press service of Roskomnadzor.

On August 26, 2021, the Tagansky District Court of Moscow considered the administrative protocols drawn up by Roskomnadzor regarding the American Internet services Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitter, which never transferred the databases of Russian users to servers located in Russia.

As a result, the court imposed a fine of 4 million rubles on WhatsApp. This is the first fine WhatsApp has received in this regard. But Facebook and Twitter received larger fines for repeated violations of localization requirements - 15 and 17 million rubles, respectively.

As noted by Roskomnadzor, in 2020 Facebook and Twitter were already prosecuted and were fined 4 million rubles each by the court. Facebook paid the fine, but Twitter didn't.

The Personal Data Law came into force in September 2015. The social network LinkedIn was blocked in Russia just for refusing to implement it. Interestingly, the requirement to localize databases of Russian users has been in effect since 2015, but liability for the violation was established only in 2019.

As noted by Roskomnadzor, to date, the storage of personal data of Russian users has been localized by about 600 representative offices of foreign companies, including Apple, Microsoft, LG, Samsung, PayPal, Booking, and others.

Violation of the localization law is punishable by a fine for legal entities in the amount of up to 6 million rubles, in case of repeated violation - up to 18 million rubles.