Twitter has agreed to store the personal data of Russian nationals on servers located within Russia in order to comply with a data security law, a state agency has claimed.

The San Francisco-based social media company sent a letter expressing its “readiness to localise databases on the territory of Russia by the middle of 2018”, the Russian state communications oversight agency told Izvestia newspaper.

The 2015 data security law requires companies to store Russians' “personal data” in Russia, ostensibly to reduce dependence on foreign technology.

It has caused widespread concern that it puts users' personal information at risk of being accessed by Russian intelligence services.

US social network LinkedIn was banned under the law in 2016.