Experts who are working on the Digital Economy program have proposed prohibiting foreign companies without a legal entity in Russia from using the data of Russians. If this decision comes into force, it will be reflected on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
The initiator was the autonomous non-profit organization (ANO) Digital Economy. However, exact information about who proposed the idea is not provided. It is assumed that the original idea came from the Association of Big Data Market Participants, which includes Mail.Ru Group, MegaFon, Rostelecom and other companies. But they deny it there.
However, the author of the initiative is not as interesting as the possible consequences. According to the president of the Association of Big Data Market Participants and member of the board of directors of MegaFon Anna Serebryanikova, for now we are talking about a working version of the concept. Its essence is that Russian and foreign companies must work according to the same rules.
βRussian and foreign companies must compete, equally observing the rules of doing business in Russia. It is impossible, under equal conditions, to impose more stringent requirements on Russian companies. In addition, some foreign companies, for example, Facebook, promised to open a Russian representative office or a separate legal entity, but did not open it. We believe that such companies are also obliged to comply with Russian legislation, otherwise they will not be able to access the data of Russian citizens,β Serebryanikova explained.
In other words, this applies to all companies that are not registered in the Russian Federation and do not comply with Russian laws. In particular, on the storage of personal data of Russian citizens in the country.
Dmitry Egorov, co-founder of the CallToVisit marketing platform, clarified that the new rules will affect large social networks and instant messengers. And the Association of Communication Agencies of Russia clarified that we are talking about targeted advertising and very large amounts. Thus, the revenue of online platforms from advertising in 2018 reached 203 billion rubles. During the same period, TV channels accumulated only 187 billion rubles. True, this is data only for Russian companies, since Google and Facebook do not disclose their data.
ANO Digital Economy is waiting for approval of the concept, after which it will be possible to talk about the reaction of the market and business to it. However, no clear deadlines were given.
But the chief analyst of the Russian Association of Electronic Commerce, Karen Kazaryan, believes that the concept is unlikely to be accepted. According to him, the requirement to register a legal entity in Russia violates the provisions of the 108th Convention of the Council of Europe (protection of individuals from automated processing of personal data). In other words, first the Russian Federation must withdraw from the Convention, and only then introduce a registration provision.
Source: 3dnews.ru