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TMT – Technology, Media & Telecommunications

Fuelled by increased consumer demand for cutting edge products and low-cost services, your business is faced with the constant battle to offer ‘more for less’. Innovation is key, but you need to overcome significant regulatory and commercial hurdles. For the past two decades, our team of over 100 specialist partners in 35 countries has been exposed to every risk and challenge you face in the TMT sector such as IP infringements or anti-trust issues. This means we understand the industries in which you transact including telecommunications, technology, sourcing, sports and media as well as data protection and are able to develop innovative solutions for you.

Technological convergence coupled with the rapid spread of new technologies has opened up a wealth of opportunities in your industry and you must move swiftly to capitalise on them. To stay ahead of the competition, you need to spot and pre-empt legal difficulties before they arise. From M&A to investment and financing, from tax to licensing and product liability, from intellectual property to employment and environmental issues, from network sharing to outsourcing, our multi-disciplinary teams can help guide you towards the most commercially successful outcome.

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02/06/2023
Uni­fied Bio­met­ric Sys­tem: New rules for pro­cessing bio­met­rics
From 1 June 2023, a pro­hib­i­tion on pro­cessing spe­cif­ic bio­met­ric per­son­al data out­side the Uni­fied Bio­met­ric Sys­tem (the “UBS”) will come in­to force. This will af­fect the abil­ity of com­mer­cial or­gan­isa­tions to pro­cess cer­tain types of bio­met­ric data.The UBS was cre­ated pur­su­ant to Fed­er­al Law No. 572* dated 29 Decem­ber 2022, which also reg­u­lates the pro­ced­ures of iden­ti­fic­a­tion and au­then­tic­a­tion of in­di­vidu­als by means of bio­met­ric per­son­al data (the “Law”).What is the Uni­fied Bio­met­ric Sys­tem?The UBS is a state in­form­a­tion sys­tem un­der which bio­met­ric per­son­al data of in­di­vidu­als is col­lec­ted and stored for sub­sequent iden­ti­fic­a­tion and au­then­tic­a­tion.The UBS cur­rently in­cludes the fol­low­ing types of bio­met­ric per­son­al data: (a) an im­age of a per­son; and (b) a re­cord of a per­son’s voice (“Bio­met­ric Data”). This list may be ex­ten­ded after 1 Septem­ber 2024.The Law stip­u­lates that Bio­met­ric Data for iden­ti­fic­a­tion pur­poses (i.e. es­tab­lish­ing a per­son’s iden­tity through their Bio­met­ric Data) and for au­then­tic­a­tion pur­poses (i.e. con­firm­ing that the per­son who provided Bio­met­ric Data is who they claim to be) can only be stored in the UBS.Iden­ti­fic­a­tion based on Bio­met­ric Data can only be car­ried out by the op­er­at­or of the UBS, JSC “Centre of Bio­met­ric Tech­no­lo­gies”.Au­then­tic­a­tion us­ing the data con­tained in the UBS can be car­ried out either by the op­er­at­or of the UBS or by spe­cially ac­cred­ited or­gan­isa­tions.Com­pan­ies are not al­lowed to in­de­pend­ently carry out iden­ti­fic­a­tion or au­then­tic­a­tion us­ing Bio­met­ric Data.What should com­pan­ies do?By 30 Septem­ber 2023, all or­gan­isa­tions that have been stor­ing Bio­met­ric Data used for iden­ti­fic­a­tion or au­then­tic­a­tion must trans­fer it to the UBS, hav­ing no­ti­fied the rel­ev­ant in­di­vidu­als 30 days be­fore the trans­fer. Af­ter­wards, the data must be de­leted.Com­pan­ies can sub­sequently au­then­tic­ate in­di­vidu­als based on Bio­met­ric Data only through the UBS or ac­cred­ited or­gan­isa­tions, but only in the event that the in­di­vidu­als in ques­tion have giv­en their vol­un­tary con­sent.For ex­ample, a vis­it­or ac­cess con­trol sys­tem that is based on auto­mated im­age read­ing or voice au­then­tic­a­tion can only be im­ple­men­ted through in­teg­ra­tion with the UBS or a tool used by an ac­cred­ited or­gan­isa­tion. Such au­then­tic­a­tion may not be per­formed in­de­pend­ently.If au­then­tic­ated through the UBS, the per­son’s iden­tity is deemed to be es­tab­lished, and com­pan­ies need not col­lect any ad­di­tion­al data to con­firm the in­di­vidu­al’s iden­tity.The UBS need not be used when:an au­thor­ised of­ficer manu­ally iden­ti­fies or au­then­tic­ates a per­son based on Bio­met­ric Data. For ex­ample, ac­cess con­trol by com­par­ing a photo with the vis­it­or who is present­ing it; an­doth­er bio­met­ric per­son­al data (i.e. not im­ages or voices) are used. Com­pan­ies may use oth­er bio­met­ric data (i.e. data char­ac­ter­ising bio­lo­gic­al and physiolo­gic­al fea­tures) without re­stric­tion provided they com­ply with the Per­son­al Data Law*.Li­ab­il­ityNo spe­cif­ic li­ab­il­ity for breach of the Law has been es­tab­lished to date; how­ever, a bill* has re­cently been sub­mit­ted to the State Duma which would es­tab­lish fines for of­fences in­volving the use of Bio­met­ric Data. The bill could be ad­op­ted dur­ing this spring ses­sion.It is pro­posed to amend part 2 of art­icle 13.11 of the Rus­si­an Code on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Of­fences to es­tab­lish the pen­al­ties for us­ing Bio­met­ric Data in vi­ol­a­tion of the re­quire­ments es­tab­lished by Rus­si­an le­gis­la­tion in the sphere of per­son­al data.For leg­al en­tit­ies, fines can range from RUB 300,000 to RUB 700,000 (from EUR 3,468 to EUR 8,091) (for re­peated vi­ol­a­tion from RUB 1m to RUB 1.5m (from EUR 11,559 to EUR 17,339)).Re­com­mend­a­tionsGiv­en the forth­com­ing entry in­to force of the Law’s pro­vi­sions pro­hib­it­ing the pro­cessing of Bio­met­ric Data out­side the UBS, we re­com­mend that com­pan­ies:check wheth­er they cur­rently use any pro­cesses to identi­fy and au­then­tic­ate in­di­vidu­als based on Bio­met­ric Data or plan to im­ple­ment any such sys­tems; an­deither ad­just the pro­cesses so as to ex­clude the ap­plic­a­tion of the Law or im­ple­ment iden­ti­fic­a­tion/au­then­tic­a­tion through the UBS in ex­ist­ing and planned busi­ness pro­cesses.* In Rus­si­an
02/06/2023
Di­git­al is now | IT com­pan­ies ac­cred­it­a­tion and audits: seize the mo­ment
On 1 June 1 2023, the dead­line is due for con­firm­ing the ac­cred­it­a­tion of IT com­pan­ies to re­ceive state sup­port. The Min­istry of Di­git­al Trans­form­a­tion has already an­nounced the launch of rel­ev­ant ap­plic­a­tions...
18/05/2023
Vladis­lav Eltovsky at Leg­al Com­mit­tee of the Rus­si­an-Ger­man Cham­ber of...
Vladis­lav Eltovskiy, Head of Di­git­al Law at SEAM­LESS Leg­al, will take part in the Leg­al Com­mit­tee of the Rus­si­an-Ger­man Cham­ber of Com­merce.Vladis­lav will make a brief over­view of the on­line ad­vert­ising...
03/04/2023
Vladis­lav Eltovskiy has been ap­poin­ted as new Head of Di­git­al Law at SEAM­LESS...
SEAM­LESS Leg­al is pleased to an­nounce the ap­point­ment of Vladis­lav Eltovskiy as Head of Di­git­al Law.Vladis­lav, who has been spe­cial­ising in in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­erty pro­tec­tion and per­son­al data pro­jects...
22/02/2023
SEAM­LESS Leg­al ex­perts re­cog­nised by the Pravo-300 rank­ing 2023
SEAM­LESS Leg­al ex­perts have earned re­cog­ni­tion by the Pravo-300 in­di­vidu­al rank­ing re­leased on 21 Feb­ru­ary 2023. The most reput­able Rus­si­an na­tion­al rank­ing has awar­ded 12 SEAM­LESS Leg­al law­yers across...
06/12/2022
SEAM­LESS Leg­al re­cog­nised by Pravo-300 2022
We are more than happy to share our first re­cog­ni­tion as SEAM­LESS Leg­al by the na­tion­al rank­ing Pravo.ru-300. This year SEAM­LESS Leg­al has earned 17 re­cog­ni­tions, in­clud­ing Band 1 award for the In­sur­ance...
02/12/2022
On­line ad­vert­ising in Rus­sia: all you need to know about new rules of la­belling
New rules for on­line ad­vert­ising came in­to force in Septem­ber 2022. Here you can find our de­tailed re­view of the most im­port­ant changes.Join us on 2 Decem­ber 2022 to dis­cuss to­geth­er with our ex­perts...
10/11/2022
Ex­perts have dis­cussed changes in ad­vert­ising in­dustry reg­u­la­tion
On 20 Oc­to­ber 2022, SEAM­LESS Leg­al held its second an­nu­al Ad­vert­ising Law con­fer­ence in Mo­scow with par­ti­cip­a­tion of the rep­res­ent­at­ives of the Fed­er­al An­ti­mono­poly Ser­vice, as­so­ci­ations, ma­jor ad­vert­isers...
12/10/2022
Per­son­al data: sweep­ing changes in reg­u­la­tion
Please join our we­bin­ar on re­cent im­port­ant changes in the reg­u­la­tion of data pro­tec­tion in Rus­sia. Join our ex­perts Ir­ina Shur­mina and Vladis­lav Eltovskiy to learn about:Ex­tra­ter­rit­ori­al ap­plic­a­tion...
23/08/2022
The Tech­no­logy, Me­dia and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Re­view
23 Au­gust 2022
17/08/2022
On­line ad­vert­ising: new rules from 1 Septem­ber 2022
On 1 Septem­ber 2022, amend­ments* to Fed­er­al Law No 38 “On Ad­vert­ising” dated 13 March 2006 (the “Law”) will come in­to force. The Law will be sup­ple­men­ted by art­icle 18.1 on on­line ad­vert­ising...
15/08/2022
Rus­sia ex­pands tax sup­port meas­ures in the IT sec­tor
Yet an­oth­er pack­age of meas­ures aimed at ex­pand­ing and cla­ri­fy­ing the cri­ter­ia for tax in­cent­ives for IT com­pan­ies was in­tro­duced mid-Ju­ly un­der Fed­er­al Law No. 321-FZ (the “Law”). Over­view of...