MOSCOW. Sept 12 (Interfax) - Western security services are collecting data of foreign users via Google and Microsoft without notifying the users' home countries; they violate national sovereignty and privacy rights, Artur Zavalunov, the head of the Legal Affairs Directorate of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office, said at a meeting of the Federation Council's working group on the protection of Russian sovereignty on Thursday.
"We have noticed on multiple occasions that Western security services directly request digital data of citizens from providers in evasion of relevant national authorities. The existence of a loophole, which is being used to breach state sovereignty in the cyberspace, is inadmissible," Zavalunov said.
"In particular, our foreign colleagues are using resources of such organizations as Google and Microsoft," he said.
"This mechanism allows for the violation of fundamental human rights and freedoms, including the right to privacy, in the digital space. This situation contravenes the principles and approaches of modern international law, since unrestrained transnational access to information makes it impossible to analyze the necessity and proportionality of measures taken in each particular case," Zavalunov said.
Governments and individuals, against whom such measures are taken, must be aware of them, he said.
"We also have solid information about other violations committed, in particular, by representatives of certain foreign ministries. I won't tell you so far to which states they belong. We are verifying this information and if it proves right, believe me, we will take every necessary measure of prosecutorial response, including our capacity for international cooperation," Zavalunov said.