Last month, the lower house of the Russian parliament discussed new amendments to make personal data storage on domestic servers mandatory as early as January 2015 – instead of 2016 as previously foreseen by new legislation adopted this past summer. Those amendments were adopted in their first and second readings.
The period allowed for compliance was so obviously unrealistic for the companies concerned that industry players and associations voiced their opposition – some even threatening to stop their activities, should the new amendments be confirmed.
Fortunately, this has not been the case, the Russian business news portal RBC reported last week, citing several sources in the Russian parliament and presidential administration.
The new amendments have been “postponed for an indefinite period,” one of the sources said. They would have created insurmountable complications in the operations of major domestic airlines and insurance companies, such as Aeroflot and Alliance: it would be hard for them to transfer their databases of clients to Russia within the prescribed time.
It is now likely that law on the storage of Russians’ personal data in Russian servers will come into force in 2016.
- This matter and other legal aspects are analyzed in details in the East-West Digital News research study on Russian e-commerce. To receive an executive summary at no charge, please contact us at [email protected].
