Tinder Says It’ll Comply With Russia On User Data

Tinder and over 150 other companies have been notified that they will have to comply with Russian authorities’ requests for users’ photos and messages.

Tinder will be told to hand over user information to Russian authorities in the near future. Companies can choose to refuse these requests, but if they do, they can be banned. Messaging app Telegram was faced with a similar request, but the company’s refusal to comply led to the service being blocked in Russia. Tinder, for its part, has “registered to be compliant,” but has insisted that “this registration in no way shares any user or personal data with any Russian regulatory bodies and we have not handed over any data to their government.” This appears to stand in contrast to the intended purpose of the law, which requires companies on the register to provide data to intelligence servers on demand.

Should this law move forward unchallenged, Tinder will have to comply with it or face a Russian ban. Other companies such as LinkedIn and Telegram have been blocked over refusal to comply with authorities’ requests for data. As is common in the modern world, many Russians have resorted to using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to access the blocked services.

Critics of the law argue that it constitutes a crackdown on internet freedom, while Russian authorities argue that they are working to prevent further terrorist attacks by monitoring certain communications. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a “sovereign internet” bill last month, which would allow Russian authorities to disconnect Russia’s internet from the rest of the world. Tinder, for its part, hasn’t made clear whether or not they would comply in the future, but the company has made clear that it hasn’t handed over any data so far.

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5 years ago
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