Finland’s data protection regulator announced on Tuesday that it had lifted a temporary ban on Russian tech group Yandex and its Dutch partner Ridetech from transferring personal data of Yandex’s Yango ride-hailing app customers to Russia.
The emergency ban was announced in August in response to Russian legislation that Finland believed at the time would grant Russia’s Federal Security Service access to data processed in taxi operations.
However, the Finnish regulator announced on Tuesday that new information revealed that Russian legislation did not apply to taxi services and that the ban, which was set to take effect on Wednesday, would not be implemented.
The Yango ride-hailing service, which is available in 14 countries including Finland and Norway, is just one of the many services provided by Yandex, which has been dubbed “Russia’s Google.”
“Yango is allowed to continue operating in Finland for the time being,” the Finnish agency said, adding that data transfer monitoring would continue in collaboration with Norwegian and Dutch regulators.
Yango has stated that it processes data in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and EU legislation, and that Russia has no jurisdiction over the company’s international operations.
Norway had planned a similar ban to Finland’s, but had not issued a formal order and will not do so, according to a spokesperson for the Norwegian Data Protection Agency.
Info source – The Star