The court restricted access to the premium car booking service Wheely.

Moscow's Meshchansky District Court has restricted access to the Wheely website and app for ordering premium cars due to violations of anti-terrorism regulations, TASS reported , citing the ruling.

The prosecutor sent a statement with the corresponding request.

"Preliminary protective measures have been taken, access to information posted on the website <...>, as well as to the software application on the website and on the AppStore, has been restricted," the court ruling states.

The reason, as stated in the document, was violations of anti-terrorism requirements.

The documents state that taxi dispatch services and carriers must transmit the specified data about taxi drivers daily online to the Unified Regional Navigation and Information System of the capital (ERNIS).

"These requirements are aimed at ensuring anti-terrorism protection, as well as the safety of passengers, since anyone who has received permission to transport passengers and luggage by taxi must comply with certain safety regulations," the document states.

RBC contacted the Moscow City Court for comment and also sent a request to Wheely's office.

The premium taxi service Wheely was founded in 2010 by Anton Chirkunov. Initially operating in London , the company later opened a branch in Moscow. Wheely differs from taxi aggregators in that it doesn't partner with taxi companies, but instead provides its own premium cars.

Russian authorities have repeatedly raised concerns about Wheely's work in relation to the Unified Register of Information (ERNIS). In 2022, Roskomnadzor added the service's website to the Unified Register of Prohibited Information. Wheely was ordered to remove the prohibited information from its website: the court found that the service operated "without accredited branches or representative offices in RUSSIA, and without providing information to the Unified Register of Information (ERNIS)."

In August 2020, a Moscow court suspended Wheely's operations for 90 days. The reason was the company's refusal to transmit vehicle movement data to the Unified Information System (ERNIS). The Moscow Prosecutor's Office determined that, given the CORONAVIRUS pandemic, this could "complicate the epidemiological situation in the city" and threaten passenger safety.

Wheely disagreed with the decision. Chirkunov stated that the data transfer requirement had been in place since 2017 and was unrelated to the pandemic, and the information obtained "would make it possible to continuously monitor any driver and, indirectly, any passenger." The service argued that the Moscow authorities' demands were contrary to the Constitution and federal law, but did nothing to prevent the spread ofcovid-19 .

Wheely challenged the court's decision, and in December of that year the Court of Cassation overturned it "due to the lack of evidence of the circumstances on the basis of which the decisions were made."

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