Facebook will not be storing people’s data in countries disregading human rights, its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on March, 6.
“As we build our infrastructure around the world, we’ve chosen not to build data centers in countries that have a track record of violating human rights like privacy or freedom of expression,” the statement reads.
According to Mark Zuckerberg, storing sensitive data in such countries could make it easier for those governments to take people’s information.
“Upholding this principle may mean that our services will get blocked in some countries, or that we won’t be able to enter others anytime soon. That’s a tradeoff we’re willing to make. We do not believe storing people’s data in some countries is a secure enough foundation to build such important internet infrastructure on,” he said.
The founder of the social network did not specify which countries he had in mind, but suggested that they might provoke other countries to ‘seek greater access to their citizens’ data’.
In January, the Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Communications (Roskomnadzor) initiated administrative cases against Facebook and Twitter for their alleged defiance of the law on the localization of Russians’ data.
