Sergey Medvedev and Stanislav Rumyantsev, respectively Partner and Senior Lawyer at Gorodissky & Partners told OneTrust DataGuidance, "Mobile app data can be classified as personal data. The operator must protect such data from unauthorised access, use, or disclosure by implementing different security measures, as required by the law. A special data protection regime will have to be complied by Social Monitoring, as well as respective data processors regarding the relevant mobile app data. The Federal Service for the Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Communications ('Roskomnadzor') has all powers and competence to verify the compliance of the same."

Ilya Goryachev, Senior Lawyer at Gorodissky & Partners, highlighted, "The focus of the Law is the imposition of additional obligations for telecommunication businesses […] that may lead to substantial expenses. In particular, telecommunications operators that provide access to the internet will be obliged to ensure installation of certain technical devices aimed at preventing threats to the 'stability, safety and integrity' for the operation of the internet in Russia.

“Seems that something is hidden here because of course Apple collects more data,” said Sergey Medvedev, a senior lawyer with the Moscow-based law firm Gorodissky and Partners.

Stanislav Rumyantsev, a leading data privacy and protection attorney at the firm of Gorodisskiy & Partners, provides in a podcast recorded today on the Data Privacy Detective an excellent summary of Russian data privacy principles, with a focus on how they affect global business.

Medvedev and Goryachev outlined, "According to the appeal, Telegram cited various arguments, including lack of jurisdiction as well as technical impossibility to fulfil the decoding request filed by the FSB to decode messages of the persons suspected of terror activity. The appeal court noted that fulfilling such a request is a legitimate obligation and that no evidence of impossibility to fulfil was provided."