Media: New anti-terrorist law package could cost Russian mobile operators millions of dollars in EU fines
The Russian package of anti-terrorist laws (the “Yarovaya Package”) could result in 45 billion rubles ($1.74 billion USD) of fines for the four biggest Russian mobile operators since it proposes the storage of EU citizens’ personal information in the territory of Russia, which goes against European regulations, Vedomosti wrote on Monday.
The European General Data Protection Regulation was published in May 2016 and will enter into force on May 25, 2018. The Yarovaya Package was adopted in the summer of 2016 and obligates telecommunication operators and Internet companies to store information on the content of users’ phone calls and correspondence, including photo, video and audio files for up to half a year, in order to provide them at the request of the intelligence services. The regulation to store user traffic will enter force on July 1, 2018.
“The Yarovaya Law could cost operators billions of rubles in fines. They will have to store even EU citizens’ data, and this goes against European norms,” the newspaper writes.
As the publication states, the violation of the new European data handling laws by foreign companies could result in serious fines – up to 20 million euros or up to 4% of the annual revenue, whichever is bigger.
“If we take into consideration the fines, depending on the recent figures, the four largest Russian operators will have to pay fines amounting to roughly 45 billion rubles,” Vedomosti writes.
Representatives of the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Russian Ministry of Telecommunications and of the EU Directorate General for Communications Networks did not respond to Vedomosti’s questions. Representatives of MTS, VympelCom, MegaFon and Tele2 also refused to comment.
Russian Minister of Open Government Affairs Mikhail Abyzov said earlier that the cost for implementing the so-called Yarovaya Package will not exceed 120-130 billion rubles ($5 billion USD), according to the Ministry of Telecommunication’s expert opinion.