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Court fines MyHeritage 1.5 mln rubles over violation of personal data law

The company was founded in Israel as an international social network and genealogy site

MOSCOW, January 17. /TASS/. The Magistrates' Court of the Tagansky District of Moscow fined MyHeritage 1.5 mln rubles ($19,633) due to the service refusal to localize data base of its Russian users on the territory of the Russian Federation, a court representative told TASS on Monday.

"By the decision of the magistrate court of the judicial district No 422 of the Tagansky district of Moscow, MyHeritage Ltd was found guilty of an administrative offense under Part 2 of Art. 13.41 of the Administrative Offenses Code of the Russian Federation (failure of the operator when gathering personal data to perform responsibility of ensuring recording, systematization, accumulation, storage, clarification or retrieval of personal data of Russian citizens, stipulated by Russian laws). It was sentenced to an administrative fine of 1.5 mln rubles ($19,633)," the court said.

MyHeritage was founded in Israel as an international social network and genealogy site where members can create their own family websites, family trees and search for ancestors, and do genealogical DNA tests. It has over 70 million users.

At the end of May 2020, Russia’s media watchdog ordered foreign services to localize databases in Russia by July 1. According to the agency, to date, the storage of personal data of Russian users has been localized by about 600 representative offices of foreign companies in the Russian Federation.