Finland lifts ban on transferring Yandex data to Russia


FILE PHOTO: The logo of Russian technology giant Yandex is on display at the company's headquarters in Moscow, Russia December 9, 2022. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina/File Photo

OSLO (Reuters) - Finland's data protection regulator said on Tuesday it had lifted a temporary ban on Russian tech group Yandex and Dutch-based partner Ridetech from transferring to Russia the personal data of customers of Yandex's Yango ride-hailing app.

The emergency ban was announced in August in response to Russian legislation which Finland at the time believed would give Russia's Federal Security Service the right to receive data from Finnish users processed in taxi operations.

But the Finnish regulator on Tuesday said new information showed that the Russian legislation did not apply to taxi services and that the ban, which had been due to come into effect on Wednesday, would not be implemented.

The Yango ride-hailing service, which operates in 14 countries including Finland and Norway, is one of many services offered by Yandex, often dubbed "Russia's Google".

"Yango is allowed to continue operating in Finland for the time being," the Finnish agency said, while adding that the monitoring of data transfers would continue in cooperation with Norwegian and Dutch regulators.

Yango has said it processes data in strict compliance with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and EU legislation, and that Russia in any case had no jurisdiction over the company's international business.

Norway had also planned a similar ban to the one issued by Finland but had not issued a formal order and will refrain from doing so, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Data Protection Agency said.

(Reporting by Terje Solsvik; Editing by Ros Russell)

Follow us on our official WhatsApp channel for breaking news alerts and key updates!

   

Next In Tech News

Russian court fines Apple for not deleting two podcasts, RIA reports
GlobalFoundries forecasts upbeat Q4 results on strong demand from smartphone makers
Emerson sharpens automation focus with offer for rest of AspenTech in $15 billion deal
Palantir shares surge to record as AI boom powers forecast raise
Tax fraud investigators search Netflix offices in Paris and Amsterdam, says source
Singapore's Keppel to buy Japanese AI-ready data centre
Tesla increases wages for staff at German gigafactory by 4%
Apple explores push into smart glasses with ‘Atlas’ user study
Japan's Kioxia sees flash memory demand almost tripling by 2028
Hacker gets into woman’s email, changes every password, tries to make purchases

Others Also Read