Zoom fined by Russian court

The Tagansky Magistrate’s Court in Moscow has issued a fine to Zoom Video Communications after the owners of the popular video conferencing platform failed to localize the personal data of its Russian customers. 

“We are punishing Zoom Video Communications Inc. in the form of an administrative fine in the amount of 15 million rubles ($153,000),” announced Timur Vakhrameev, the magistrate judge of court district No. 422 of the Tagansky district in Moscow, on Thursday.

According to the court, the California-based company has been found guilty of repeatedly failing in their obligation to store the personal data of Russian citizens on databases located in Russia.

As reported by the Interfax news outlet, neither the defense nor any representatives of Zoom appeared in court during the hearing.

Zoom was issued a similar fine in June 2022 and was ordered to pay 1 million rubles (roughly $10,000). That year, a number of other companies – namely Tinder, Spotify, Snapchat, and Whatsapp – were also fined for refusing to comply with Russia’s data localization laws.

Russia’s Administrative Code dictates that any businesses operating in the country are required to ensure that the recording, systematization, accumulation, storage, clarification (updates, changes), or extraction of the personal data of citizens of the Russian Federation is done using databases located in Russia. The fine for breaching this law can range from 1-6 million rubles ($10,000-$61,000), while a repeated offense can cost up to 18 million rubles ($180,000).

On Wednesday, the magistrate’s court also announced that a total of 12 foreign companies – including Spotify, Airbnb, Ookla, Google, and UPS, among others –  have been accused of breaching, in some cases repeatedly, Russian data localization laws.

Their hearings are scheduled for October 16 and November 9, a source within the court told Interfax.

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