Russia is thinking about prohibiting civil servant from utilizing foreign messaging apps for main communications or calling citizens, the RBC news website reported Monday.The proposed restriction one of lots of scheduled legal and regulatory modifications ostensibly focused on combatting phone and internet fraudsters would tighten up control over authorities interactions with independent and foreign journalists.Authorities justify the procedures by saying that foreign messaging services are increasingly exploited for criminal schemes and are hard to manage.
We have actually analyzed in detail the most typical fraudulent plans, including deceptiveness through calls and messages, hacking of personal accounts and registration of loans on other individualss passports.
Based on this analysis, we have actually established measures to protect residents from such risks, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko informed RBC.Employees of the Central Bank, credit institutions, telecoms operators and advertising agencies would likewise be disallowed from interacting by means of foreign messaging apps under the planned changes, RBC reported.Officials will be able to utilize authorized domestic messengers once they confirm their identities through a state identification portal, and phone screens will be required to indicate when a call comes from an organization or an international number.Additionally, federal government investigative and security firms will be able to request info of interest from telecom operators once the changes are implemented.The proposition cites Interior Ministry data mentioning that crimes involving details and communication technologies rose by 30% in 2023 to 677,000 cases.
In the very first nine months of 2024, these crimes increased by another 16.4% to 564,000 cases.
Of these, 20% involved theft from bank accounts.The propositions authors argue that allowing real-time details exchange in between government companies, banks and digital platforms will help swiftly identify and obstruct suspicious activities while signaling police to possible crimes.An agent of the Digital Development Ministry informed RBC that the amendments will not negatively impact citizens.
A federal government legal commission is set to evaluate the proposals in the coming days, with implementation prepared for 2025-26, the ministrys representative told RBC.State interactions watchdog Roskomnadzor will assemble a list of foreign platforms to be prohibited under the modifications, RBC said.The planned measures come days after President Vladimir Putin bought the government, the FSB and the Interior Ministry to establish measures to obstruct criminal calls from Ukraine and other unfriendly countries, a designation mainly targeted at Western states.In December, Putin claimed that Ukrainian phone scammers had taken more than 250 billion rubles ($2.5 billion) from Russian residents in 2024 alone and implicated Kyiv of making phone scams a part of state policy.
According to the independent Mediazona news website, phone scammers have coordinatedat least 187 arson attacks on Russian military registration and enlistment offices, banks, cars and other centers considering that the full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost 3 years earlier.