Ministers M. Skuodis and A. Armonaitė ask Google and Apple to remove YandexGo application in Lithuania
Taking into account the unprecedented Russian aggression against Ukraine and the declaration of the state of emergency in Lithuania, the Minister of Transport and Communications Marius Skuodis together with the Minister of the Economy and Innovation Aušrinė Armonaitė addressed the world’s largest technology companies Google and Apple asking to remove the Yandex Go application for consumers in Lithuania.
“The most important thing right now is the security of our people and their data. Lithuania is directly cooperating on this issue with major information technology and telecommunications companies, the National Cyber Security Centre and other institutions of the country. The operation of this taxi service app, which poses a threat to national security, must be suspended in Lithuania,” said Skuodis, Minister of Transport and Communications.
Yandex Taxi is the largest online booking system for passenger transport services in Russia, which has been actively distributed in Lithuania since July 2018. The product of this system is an information society service provided through the Yandex Go application. Transport services are provided by carriers who register on the platform, so the platform itself does not require a license to engage in passenger transport activities.
The analysis of the application designed for smart devices performed by the Cyber Security Centre has shown that it requires access to a large amount of sensitive user data and permission to use the device’s features. The data collected by the user device is stored on the servers of the organisation, which is based in Russia.
According to the assessment of threats to national security by performed by intelligence services, the Russian authorities have the legal powers and technical capacity to gain access to data on Russian and foreign nationals using Russian electronic communications platforms.
The assessment of threats also indicated that all Lithuanian citizens using Russian social networks and e-mail services, such as odnoklassniki, mail.ru, yandex, etc., are at risk of leaking personal data to Russia’s intelligence and security services.
Last updated: 01-03-2022
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