Banks criticized the bill on intelligence services’ access to customer data

The Association of Banks of Russia (ADB) did not support the government bill on providing law enforcement agencies with access to information systems and databases with customer data. The document assumes that a number of departments will be able to remotely delete information about their employees. ADB sees this as a violation of the constitutional rights of Russians and non-compliance with the anti-money laundering law, reports RBC. As Kommersant reported, the bill was previously criticized by the Big Data Association.

Bill was submitted to the State Duma in August. He assumes that the Ministry of Defense, FSB, FSO, Foreign Intelligence Service and the Ministry of Internal Affairs will have access to the banks’ systems. They will be able to remotely delete and edit information about their employees who are bank clients. The authors explain the initiative by the need to provide protection to certain categories of persons who work in law enforcement agencies. The categories will be determined by presidential decree.

ADB, which includes such large banks as Sberbank, VTB, Alfa Bank, Tinkoff Bank, Gazprombank and others, sent a negative review to the Ministry of Digital Development and to the Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies and Communications, Alexander Khinshtein.

What ADB is unhappy with:

• the document “gives rise to numerous legal conflicts” and contradicts other laws;
• the adoption of the law will lead to a violation of the constitutional rights of Russian citizens due to the provision of intelligence services with unlimited access to personal data of individuals, including those who do not belong to a special category of intelligence service employees, and the banks themselves will be required to provide personal data without the client’s consent and decision ships;
• it is not clear how to transfer data on customer transactions under the anti-money laundering law to Rosfinmonitoring if intelligence services can edit the data without notifying banks;
• The new requirements will result in significant increases in labor costs, extensive workloads and higher costs.

Banks note other complaints about the bill. Thus, unlimited access of intelligence services, according to the ADB, can lead to risks for information security. According to banks, the requirement for operators of information systems and databases to provide remote access to intelligence services should be excluded from the bill. As an alternative, you can build interaction with intelligence agencies through the Federal Tax Service or the Central Bank.

The Ministry of Digital Development only noted that law enforcement agencies will interact with the information systems of banks “strictly in accordance with the procedure established by the government.” “In this way, all possible risks will be taken into account,” the ministry believes. They also noted that access will not be provided to all information systems, but to those “that will be included in a special register.”

The Big Data Association (which unites Yandex, VK, Rostelecom, MegaFon, etc.) also previously opposed the bill. In her opinion, the adoption of the law could lead to a violation of the integrity of information systems and create a threat for businesses to violate other laws.

Read more about the document in the Kommersant article. “These bases – who needs bases”.

Leonid Uvarchev