Russian authorities have ordered popular dating app Tinder to comply with government requests to hand over messages and photos of its users in Russia, BBC reported. Tinder has been added to a Russian government database called Register of Information Dissemination Organisations (ORI), which requires them to store data on Russian servers for six months. There are currently 175 companies on this list. Under Russian law, these companies are required to give data to the police or intelligence agencies even without a court order. Popular messaging app Telegram was banned in Russia last year, after it refused to comply with a similar direction from Russian authorities. Encrypted instant messaging service Threema also refused to comply with FSB requests, but as of now they have not been banned in Russia. https://twitter.com/zackwhittaker/status/1135586461535940609?s=08 What is the legal basis for demanding this data? Russia’s data retention law, which was a part of a legislative package termed Yarovaya laws, came into force last July. It required telecom providers in the country to store details of people's communications for the benefit of the Russian intelligence services. Unlike certain European data acquisition and retention laws, including UK's Investigatory Powers Act, Russia’s law seeks to collect the content of communications, not just the usual metadata about who was contacting whom, and when. Under the new rules, operators have to store customers' text messages, phone calls and chat activity for six months on Russian servers. According to Russian laws 97-FZ and 374-FZ, companies added to this database must hand over…
