IT centers with ambassadorial sovereignty - to be or not to be

On September 1, 2015, the provision of the Law on Personal Data on the mandatory storage of personal data of Russians on servers located in Russia comes into force.

According to Internet ombudsman Dmitry Marinichev, many companies simply do not have time to locate or rent servers in the Russian Federation in such a short period of time, as a result of which they can be suspended in our country. That will adversely affect the entire IT sector within Russia and nearby countries.

Instead of such a forced solution, Marinichev proposes to use economic methods, that is, to create conditions for the development of the data center industry in Russia. As a result of such an action, it is quite possible that a situation will develop when international companies will store in our country not only data from Russians, but also residents of other countries.

This proposal was submitted by Dmitry Marinichev for discussion at the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media, and is also going to send agreed proposals to President Vladimir Putin.
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According to Izvestia , the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media accepted the proposals positively, but there were no comments from the ministry so far.

The proposals of the official suggest: the need to allocate land for the construction of data processing centers, the provision of electricity at a pre-agreed price, as well as customs privileges for the importation of the necessary equipment. According to the calculations presented in the proposal, the placement of data centers in Russia will be beneficial to many foreign countries.

Despite all of the above, to ensure attractiveness, there is another condition - it is necessary to provide data centers with a special status, including state guarantees of immunity and access to equipment and information, similar to the conditions of existence of embassies.

According to Marinichev, Russia has everything necessary for the implementation of such a project: inexpensive electricity, a relatively cold climate, availability of a reliable data transmission network and large areas.

According to the calculations of the official, such a project after launch will be able to bring significant profits. Server rental will bring in 90 times more revenue than the traditional Russian sale of raw materials.

According to the analytical company DCD Intelligence, in 2014, Russia spent $ 3.5 billion on data centers - this is 0.2% of the global turnover of the relevant industry. All Russian data centers have a total area of ​​less than one large Google data center. The global market for cloud technologies is growing at 17.5% per year, so that the prospects for the industry are visible to the naked eye, although they require significant costs.

Some experts of the region warn that such a decision should be treated very carefully, since extraterritorial rights may increase the risk that various illegal content will appear on these servers.