Former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who has recently received temporary residence permit in Russia, might be invited to work as an expert for the Parliament, a lawmaker said Tuesday.

"I am going to discuss with Snowden possible cooperation with a working group (dealing with citizens' privacy rights and personal data security)," Ruslan Gattarov, a member of the Federation Council, or upper house of the parliament, told Interfax news agency.

Gattarov, also a member of the ruling United Russia party, chairs the Information Policy Commission of the upper house to which the working group subordinates.

The group is preparing a bill which toughens rules of personal data protection in cyberspace.

The politician said he considered the former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor "a highly qualified expert" in data protection sphere.

Snowden could help Russian Internet companies work out a leak-proof software, Gattarov added.

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