The prosecutor’s office demanded to block a website publishing information on officials’ incomes.
The website of the “Declarator” project, which publishes data on the incomes of officials, deputies, judges and other officials, has been blocked in Russia. Representatives of the resource reported about it in the Telegram channel.
The Astrakhan Region Prosecutor’s Office made a demand to block “Declarator” back in May. The Prosecutor’s Office of the Astrakhan Region filed a lawsuit in the Sovetsky District Court of Astrakhan with a request to restrict access to the portal because of the dissemination of personal data of officials without their consent, RBC reports. According to the state, “Declarator” cannot publish information about the property of civil servants, as it is not an official media. The agency justified the filing of a lawsuit with the aim of “protecting the institution of state power of the Russian Federation and the rights of an unlimited circle of persons from discrediting an unofficial information source.
A few days after the appeal of the prosecutor’s office, the court ordered Roskomnadzor of the Astrakhan region to restrict access to “Declarator”, which collected information about 1.3 million people, as a measure of preliminary protection under an administrative lawsuit. The site stopped opening in Russia without a VPN. However, the Astrakhan court has not yet issued a final decision.
Consent for the use of personal data of public persons is not required if they were disclosed on the basis of federal laws, the authors of the project report on their website with reference to N 152-FZ. “The project “Declarator” is not obliged to obtain consent for the processing of personal data, as it uses only open and legal sources,” the portal says.
“Our position is that this information is of public importance, it is published by virtue of the law, and it must be disseminated, be available to the maximum number of people. And, accordingly, it is this dissemination and transparency of the work of the authorities and the people who work in them that we are engaged in,” project coordinator Ivan Luzin told RBC.
He also noted that Declarator had not received any notification of the lawsuit and learned about it by chance while monitoring mentions of the resource on the Internet.
In 2022, the Russian Federation restricted the publication of declarations of employees of a number of agencies for the period of the “SWO”. The following year, a law was passed allowing deputies and senators not to make income declarations public, as well as authorizing municipal deputies not to submit declarations under certain conditions. After that, “Declarator” had to search for information on other, but also open legal sources, emphasized Luzin.
Restriction of access to “Declarator” is an attempt of “purposeful malicious blocking of access to socially important information,” the project believes and adds that it will continue to defend its position in court.