Mail.Ru Group was fined for compliance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation

As is known, the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the main legal document in the country, protects the secret of personal correspondence in accordance with paragraph 2 of Art. 23 . This secret may be violated only by an appropriate court decision. However, government agencies in many countries where such a rule is in force do not always worry about violating the law and require disclosure of personal information from companies owning communication facilities. Most often, meeting with the refusal of an illegitimate request, attempts to receive a correspondence are fading away or are being conducted through court. But not in the case of Mail.ru Group and the Bank of Russia.



On August 30, 2013, the Federal Financial Markets Service of Russia (from September 1, 2013, its powers were transferred to the Bank of Russia) appealed to Mail.Ru Group with a request to provide information about who the Mail.Ru Mail user corresponded with for a certain period. The company has refused to provide this data.

Today, the Bank of Russia ruled to bring Mail.Ru Group to administrative responsibility and to recover a fine in the amount of 500,000 rubles for refusing to provide data on personal correspondence, according to a press release to Mail.ru Group, received by me. The head of the legal service of Mail.Ru Group, Anton Malginov, said: “We do not agree with the decision of the Bank of Russia made today and intend to dispute it in court after receiving the text of the resolution”.