The Dutch authorities have launched an investigation into the use of Yango taxi service (owned by Yandex N.V., a Dutch company) over suspicions of cooperation with Russian special services.
Source. Bloomberg
Law enforcement officials in the Netherlands fear that the FSB is using the app to collect data on customers in Europe. And this contradicts the EU's personal data protection rules.
"We can confirm that we have launched an investigation into Yango," a spokesperson for the Dutch Data Protection Authority told Bloomberg.
Details of the investigation are not specified.
On September 1, a law came into force in Russia requiring taxi aggregators to provide Russian security forces with access to information about service users. By law, the carrier is obliged to store information from the order log for at least six months.
As Medusa has found out, the data of customers using the Yandex taxi service, including those abroad, is now stored only in Russian data centers. As of September 1, the FSB may have access to it, the newspaper claimed.
The Yandex press service denied this information. They said that data on taxi rides can only be obtained by law enforcement agencies in the country where they were made.
Authorities in Finland and Norway have previously expressed concerns about the new Russian law. Both countries issued emergency orders prohibiting Yango from transferring data to Russia.
Despite the war and sanctions, Yandex taxi operates in more than 20 countries, including Finland, Norway, Israel, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Armenia.