Facebook could find itself banned in Russia in 2018.
Quoting Alexander Zharov, the head of the regulator Roskomnadzor, Telecom Daily reports that such a move could happen if the social media site fails to comply with the requirements of the law “On the storage of personal data of Russians in the territory of the Russian Federation”.
Zharov added that although there had been no official communication between the two parties and Roskomnadzor has no plans to enter into one before the end of this year, it will think about doing so in 2018.
He also said that while Facebook has a significant number of users in Russia it is by no means a unique service. There are other social networks and all have to respect the law.
Failure to do so could see it excluded from the country, as was the case with LinkedIn.
However, LinkedIn had far fewer users in Russia than Facebook.
Meanwhile, Twitter has previously indicated that it will localise the personal data of its Russian users by mid-2018.
The law “On the storage of personal data of Russians in the territory of the Russian Federation” has been in effect since September 2015.