ABD proposed to develop rules for storing data of Russians abroad

The Association of Big Data (ABD) announced its readiness to develop rules for the safe storage and processing of personal data of Russians in data centers of friendly countries. RBC reported this to the association.

The proposal is related to drone attacks on data centers of Russian companies. The ABD believes that storing data at multiple sites, including overseas, will help avoid disruptions to digital services in the event of infrastructure damage.

The Association proposes, together with market participants, to determine the requirements for the protection of personal data, the terms of their storage abroad and the procedure for transferring information. It is assumed that the new rules will operate for a limited time, but companies will be able to use foreign data centers not only after attacks or other incidents, but also for pre-prepared backup storage.

At the same time, as emphasized in the ABD, the placement of information abroad should not reduce the level of its protection. Russian companies will continue to be responsible for the security of personal data regardless of the country in which they are stored.

The association believes that the development of new rules should begin as soon as possible, since attacks on data centers are already taking place, and the possible scale of damage is difficult to predict. ABD is ready to urgently prepare proposals for discussion with relevant departments and market participants.

The Big Data Association was established in 2018. It develops general principles for storing, processing and using big data. Among its participants are Yandex, VK, Sber, VTB, T-Bank, MTS, Avito, HeadHunter and other large companies.

Earlier, the Association of Internet Trade Companies (AKIT) appealed to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin with a proposal to allow affected companies to temporarily use backup data centers in friendly countries until March 1, 2028.

In October, drones repeatedly attacked data centers of major Russian companies. On October 8, after the UAV attack, a fire occurred in the Yandex data center in Sasovo, Ryazan region. The next day, the company’s facility in Kaluga was damaged, and on October 11 in Vladimir. The latest attack led to a complete shutdown of the data center. Against the background of the incident, users faced disruptions in the work of a number of Yandex services. On October 14, Sberbank confirmed the attack on its data center. The bank said that the employees were not injured, and all systems continued to work normally. On October 18, the VK data center in the Leningrad region was attacked by drones.

The head of the Ministry of information Maksut Shadayev earlier called the attacks on data centers of “Yandex” unprecedented in scale and said that the Agency together with the Ministry of defense solves the issue of protection of objects. The Kremlin also said that the government is discussing the situation with business.