Apple may be fined by Russia for failing to store user data within the country, according to a new report today.
Twitch, Pinterest, Airbnb, and UPS have already been fined – though the sums involved are hardly likely to concern any of them …
Reuters reports:
A Moscow court said it had fined video streaming service Twitch, social network Pinterest, holiday rental company Airbnb and United Parcel Service (UPS) on Tuesday for refusing to store Russian citizens’ personal data in Russia.
Moscow has clashed with Big Tech over content, censorship, data and local representation in a simmering dispute that has erupted into a full-on battle since Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24.
For first-time offences, companies can be fined 1-6 million roubles, said Roskomnadzor, which has also opened cases against Apple and Likeme.
However, most fines have been in the 1-2M ruble range, which is roughly $19K to $38K. Although fines do escalate for repeat offenses – even Google has only been fined a total of $340,000.
Russia fined Google 15 million roubles this month for what it said was repeated failure to comply with Russian legislation on data storage, after handing it a 3-million-rouble penalty last year.
Apple does generally comply with local laws in each of the countries in which it operates – to quote the company’s oft-given statement on controversies like this – but at present there is greater willingness among large companies to defy Russia.
The Cupertino company did, however, give in to a similar law in China back in 2018.
Starting today, Apple will be moving the iCloud data of Chinese customers to a server run by GCBD, a company owned by the provincial government.
Apple first announced plans for the move last year, explaining that it was necessary to comply with new laws in China.
Although Apple did its best to deny that this gave the Chinese authorities unlimited access to user data, the server was run by a state-owned company. China itself claimed that it could only gain access to data with a court order, but with no true separation of state and judiciary, that is a distinction without a difference.
Apple has been cooperating with sanctions against Russia following the illegal invasion of Ukraine. When a loophole allowed some Apple Pay payments to continue after they were meant to be stopped, the Californian company acted to block it. CEO Tim Cook also told employees that Apple would triple their humanitarian aid donations to organizations working to help Ukraine.
The Russian government has been censoring news to ensure that its citizens only hear the official (and entirely fictional) story of the war, including blocking internet feeds. That saw VPN apps top App Store downloads in the country.
The number of VPN app downloads in Russia has grown considerably since the conflict began on February 24. As of Tuesday, the most popular VPN apps have seen an increase of over 1,200% in the number of downloads in both the App Store and Google Play in Russia.
On March 1 alone, VPN apps registered almost half a million downloads in Russia compared to an average of 10,000 downloads per day last month. The numbers are a result of local communications regulator Roskomnadzor blocking access to multiple social networks and news websites on Russian internet providers.
Photo: Andrey Stenin/RIA Novosti/CC-BY-SA 3.0
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