Liliya Chanysheva, an activist who works at Alexey Navalny’s headquarters in St. Petersburg, is suing the social network Vkontakte (a property of LSE-listed Mail.Ru Group) for disclosing users’ personal information to Russian law enforcement.
According to Chanysheva’s lawyer, police have tried to justify the information collection by citing two federal laws, though both these laws limit the authorities’ information-gathering powers to “exclusively within the scope of their authorities, or in relation to misdemeanor or felony investigations.”
In recent months, Vkontakte has weathered bad publicity for sharing user data with the police and helping the authorities identify so-called Internet criminals in controversial, often politicized trials.
Proekt.Media, a new independent online publication which claims it will cover even “complex and dangerous topics,” has reported on Chanysheva’s story and other cases of cooperation of Vkontakte with law enforcement and secret service agencies (read the article in Russian)
