Global Social Networks and Messengers Might Need an Official Registration in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan’s deputies want foreign social networks and messengers to have registered their business in the country or open a subsidiary, Interfax Kazakhstan news agency reported. 

New amendments to the national legislation in the area of child’s rights protection were already approved by Mazhilis (the lower chamber of the parliament) on Wednesday.

«For legal work in the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan, owners of foreign online platforms and instant messaging services or their legitimate representatives have to conduct an imperative registration of their business in a form of legal body or representative office of a foreign enterprise in an order stipulated by the law of the Republic of Kazakhstan related to legal bodies and foreign subsidiaries,» says the draft law published on the Mazhilis website. 

Moreover, all executives of such subsidiaries operating in Kazakhstan can’t be foreigners or persons without nationality. 

If a foreign online platform or messaging service refuses to make an official registration of its business or open a subsidiary, its operation in Kazakhstan would be restrained, according to the document.

In the same endeavor to protect Kazakhstani children, Majilis deputies have also suggested upgrading the punishment for bullying and cyberbullying towards children, which might pose a huge threat for youth, noted the chamber’s chairman Nurlan Nigmatullin.