Moscow Court Fines WhatsApp $54,040 for Refusal to Store User Data Locally - Watchdog

(Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th August, 2021) Adds Roskomnadzor's comment to Sputnik on Google's fines in paras 7-9, comment on Twitter's fines in paras 5-6)

WhatsApp messenger has been hit with its first fine in Russia for refusing to store personal user data within Russia, Russia's media watchdog Roskomnadzor said on Thursday, specifying that the fine imposed by Moscow's Tagansky district court totaled 4 million rubles ($54,040).

"A fine of 4 million rubles was imposed on WhatsApp by a court ruling under Part 8 of Article 13.11 of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses," Roskomnadzor said in a statement.

The maximum fine for this offense for legal entities can reach 6 million rubles.

Twitter was also fined 17 million rubles, and Facebook 15 million rubles, for their repeated refusal to store user data locally within Russia.

Roskomnadzor noted that Twitter has not yet paid last year's fine of 4 million rubles for failing to store data in the country.

"In 2020, Facebook and Twitter were already held accountable ... and were fined 4 million rubles each. Facebook paid the fine, while Twitter did not," the watchdog said.

Commenting on Google's fines, the Russian regulator said the US tech giant has been charged a total of 32.5 million rubles since early 2021, but paid only 3.5 million rubles for not filtering search results.

"In 2021, Roskomnadzor drew up fifteen administrative protocols against Google LLC, which were submitted to the court. The court considered thirteen cases, in which Google was fined 32.5 million rubles," the agency told Sputnik.

Google has still not paid fines for failing to remove banned content and refusal to store personal user data locally within Russia 26 million rubles and 3 million rubles, respectively.