Online giant Yandex, dubbed "Russia's Google", and its taxi service Yango have become the centre of a brewing political controversy for their continuing operations in Finland.
The Baltic states Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia banned Yango in April, labelling the firm a security risk. But Finland has as yet not made a similar move, with the government saying it does not have the ability to do so.
Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine last February, business relations between Finland and Russia have soured, with many Finnish companies pulling out of the Russian market and sanctions impacting firms on both sides of the border.
Despite the situation, Yandex and Yango remain perhaps the most visible exception in Finland.
"The government is actively monitoring the operations of the Yandex company in Finland and the sanctions imposed by the EU," was one written response to a parliamentary question about security risks related to Yango's operations.
Possible security concerns surrounding Yandex and Yango have been brought up in parliament five times — four in written questions and once as an oral question. Minister of Transport and Communications Timo Haraka (Left) and Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto (Green) have repeated that the government is monitoring the companies' activities as well as EU sanctions, but that Finland has no current plans to formally ban the firm.
Youth wings united on boycott
In December, the youth wings of both the National Coalition Party (NCP) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) called for the Russian firms to be banned from operating in Finland.
In their joint statement, the organisations justified such a move by saying that users' information ends up in the hands of Russian intelligence agencies.
Estonia discovered that the FSB, Russia's intelligence service, was able to access user data from Yandex customers. News agency Reuters reported that Yandex agreed to hand over encryption keys to the FSB.
However, there is no evidence to suggest that activities threatening information security have occured in Finland, according to Haavisto's statement.
Sanctions, laws cannot impede Yandex
Currently, Yandex and Yango are not directly subject to EU sanctions, and as a result, Finland has not sanctioned the firms.
Haavisto noted that Finland will likely act through the EU if security concerns arise, rather than at the national level as the Baltic states did.
However, Haavisto noted that "the EU has imposed sanctions on the directors of the Yandex company and its founder in March and June 2022, and as a result of these sanctions, the National Enforcement Authority has confiscated shares of Yandex's subsidiary, Global DC Oy, in Finland".
Additionally, there has been no suspicions of any crimes being committed by the firms at a national level.
"The Finnish Transport and Communications Agency (Traficom) has assessed the operations of the Yango taxi rideshare service that, technically, the Yango application does not seem to have features that collect information that deviates from the norm," Haraka wrote in a written response.
According to Traficom, Yango is operating just as every other firm in the market.
So far, any boycotts against Yango in Finland have come from the actions of individuals.
Due to a loss in customers last spring, some of the firm's drivers removed Yango stickers from their cars.