"Regulators fear Russia could access Yandex taxi data from Europe, Central Asia", 9 August 2023

News that the Russian security service could potentially gain access to data collected by the Yandex taxi service has raised alarms among users and regulators in Europe and Central Asia.

Often referred to as "Russia's Google," Yandex runs the biggest search engine in the country and also provides an Uber-like ride-hailing and food-delivery service under the name Yango, or YandexGo, in more than 20 countries. These include Israel, Norway, Finland, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Armenia.

Last year, the Russian parliament signed a law allowing the country’s security service, the FSB, to access user data collected by taxi services. The law comes into force in September and could potentially affect not only Russian but also foreign users of Yango, according to an investigation published by the Russian independent media outlet Meduza.

In response to Meduza's investigation, Yandex denied that the FSB would gain access to customer data outside of Russia.

"Data about the trip can only be obtained by law enforcement agencies of the country where the trip was made," the company's press service said... Russia's new law on access to taxi data will not change those rules, Yandex added.

However, countries where the service operates still have concerns about user privacy.

Finnish and Norwegian regulators said... they had banned Yandex and its Netherlands-based partner Ridetech International from sharing any personal data of Yango’s customers with Russia.

"There is an acute risk to privacy as Russian authorities could potentially monitor the movements of Norwegian citizens via Yango," the Norwegian data protection authority said in a statement.

Georgia and Kazakhstan have also launched an investigation into this matter. While the investigation is ongoing, the Kazakhstan government has temporarily suspended the operation of the Yandex website in the country.

The Kazakhstan subsidiary of the company said that it handles its user data in compliance with the nation's laws and can only share user data with foreign governments through an official request.