MOSCOW, September 16 (RAPSI) – The State Duma Committee on Information Policy recommended that the lower house adopt a bill to make the personal data storage law effective in January 2015.

In July 2014, President Vladimir Putin signed a law obliging foreign online companies that sell plane tickets and consumer goods in Russia, as well as social networking sites, to store Russians’ personal data only in Russia.

Foreign companies like Twitter, Facebook and Booking.com will have to open offices in Russia to be able to operate here.

The law was to take effect on September 1, 2016. However, a bill was recently submitted to the State Duma proposing that the personal data law take effect on January 1, 2015.

“The situation in the information space is extremely complicated. If we delay the enforcement of the law, large foreign companies will continue to use Russian clients’ personal data at their discretion and will continue to store them [outside Russia],” co-author of the bill Vadim Dengin (LDPR) said at a meeting of the committee.