As per the monitoring of the authorized bodies in May 2021, the personal data of Uzbeks on the social networks VKontakte (owned by Mail.ru Group), Twitter (Twitter Inc) and WeChat (Tencent Inc) are being processed in violation of Article 27-1 of the Personal Data Law, the press service of the Uzbek inspectorate committee (Uzkomnazorat) said.
Uzkomnazorat issued instructions to Mail.ru Group, Twitter Inc. and Tencent Inc "to take appropriate steps to ensure compliance with the requirements" of Article 27-1 of the Personal Data Law , that is, social networks and global Internet companies are required to process personal data of Uzbek citizens on servers located in the country and registered within the State Register of Personal Data Bases.
This procedure has been established since April 16, but the lack of visible results of the relevant state bodies in this area caused the deputies to disagree. The implementation of this provision was previously studied at a meeting of the Committee of the Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis on innovative development, information policy and information technology.
“This means that if social networks and Internet companies want to conduct legal activities in Uzbekistan, they must [place] their equipment on the territory of Uzbekistan, or, in accordance with the established procedure, may be brought to administrative or criminal liability,” the committee said in a statement.
