Russian Federation

[RU] Court bans access to LinkedIn

IRIS 2017-2:1/29

Andrei Richter

Comenius University (Bratislava)

LinkedIn, the major global professional social network, has been banned in Russia after a Moscow City Court upheld an earlier court decision taken upon a claim by Roskomnadzor, the governmental supervisory authority in media, communications and personal data traffic (see IRIS 2012-8/36). LinkedIn stood accused of failing to comply with a 2014 federal law requiring Internet companies that process Russian citizens’ personal information to store their user data on servers located in Russia (see IRIS 2014-8/35). Reportedly Linkedin had more than 6,000,000 users in Russia.

The court of first instance found violations and ordered to obligate Roskomnadzor to effectively limit Internet access to the LinkedIn websites and services at linkedin.com.

The court of second instance found no reasons to uphold the appeal of LinkedIn Corporation. It confirmed that the plaintiff violated “the rights and legitimate interests of the citizens of the Russian Federation as subjects of personal data by collecting information on the users of the website as well as on other citizens of the Russian Federation who are not its users, by processing these data and by their dissemination, including via the website in question, without necessary permissions as well as with violation of the law of the Russian Federation in the field of personal data”.