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Lawmakers Want Google to Comply With Constitution

A member of the upper house of parliament has accused Google of having a user agreement that breaks the law and violates people's privacy rights as protected by the Russian Constitution.

"We are talking about the personal data that people provide when they sign the user agreement with Google," said Ruslan Gattarov, the head of the information policy committee of the Federation Council, Interfax reported Wednesday.

"The agreement is composed in such a way that a person cannot explicate his personal information afterwards, and Google can later transfer the data to third parties," he said.

Gattarov also said the company's policy not only violated local laws and the Constitution but also went against the European Data Protection Directive.

The lawmaker proposed that the Federation Council together with the authorities regulating the communications sector persuade Google to edit its user agreement so that it complied with legislation.

"Our colleagues in the United Kingdom, France and Germany did the same, and we are set to introduce a bill at the next hearings that start in autumn that will better protect our citizens and their personal data," the senator said.

The senators had invited Google representatives to attend a meeting of the information policy committee dedicated to personal data security that was scheduled for June 19 but no one from the company showed up, according to Interfax.

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