ANO "Digital Economy", which includes more than 30 large organizations, has proposed to prohibit the transfer of personal data of foreigners collected outside of Russia to the state information system "State Lake". From September 2025, personal data operators will be required to transfer this data in an anonymized form. How exactly this will happen is still being decided by the government.
This data is planned to be used for decision-making in extreme situations, such as quarantine, terrorism, or for analyzing the economic situation. It will also be used for training artificial intelligence. However, ANO warns that collecting data on foreigners may cause problems for Russian companies abroad, as has already happened with Yandex in Europe.
In addition, from July 1, 2025, the requirements for localizing data of Russian citizens will be tightened. All data must be collected, stored, and processed exclusively on the territory of the country, and the use of foreign databases will be prohibited. Cross-border data transfer is possible only with notification to Roskomnadzor.
In response to the draft order of Roskomnadzor, businesses have asked to expand the list of methods for depersonalizing data. Without clear criteria for the quality of anonymization, according to the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, any anonymization can be recognized as inadequate.
Moscow plans to create its own "Data Lake", which will not transfer data to the federal system. This data will only be used for training artificial intelligence and will not be included in the "State Lake".
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