UPDATE: Russia’s State Duma obliges operators to store info on talks

(Adds comments from expert in last four paragraphs)

MOSCOW, Jun 24 (PRIME) – Russia’s State Duma, the parliament’s lower house, has approved on Friday a package of antiterrorist amendments, including a clause obliging connection operators, messengers and social networks to keep a record of facts of talks, correspondence and their content.

The initiatives were put forward by Irina Yarovaya, chairwoman of the State Duma’s security committee, and Viktor Ozerov, head of the defense committee at the Federation Council, the parliament’s upper house.

The amendments are supposed to be added to the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code, as well as to 10 separate laws.

Yarovaya first wanted to oblige connection operators to store records of talks, messages and images of users for three years and provide the data to law enforcement entities upon request. The industry’s experts calculated that expenses of the county’s operators in this case would have exceeded their annual budgets.

The final form of the document reads that operators must keep information on facts of exchange of calls, messages, photos, sounds and video of users for three years on the country’s territory, while they must keep content of talks and correspondence for up to six months.

The same requirements are applicable to messengers and social networks, but they must keep records of facts of message transfers for one year. Content of correspondence must be also stored for up to six months.

The government will determine the order, deadlines and volume of information storage.

Connection operators must provide law enforcement entities with information on users and services rendered to them. Messengers and social networks must equip the Federal Security Service with keys if messages are deciphered.

The amendments stipulate a fine at 3,000–5,000 rubles for citizens; 30,000–50,000 rubles for officials; and 800,000–1 million rubles for firms.

AC&M Consulting’s managing partner Mikhail Alekseyev said the law would require involving all data centers of the world and does not look feasible in the near-term.

“I don’t understand how the law could be implemented. I don’t understand how it is possible to physically store (data), who will do it and where the capacities will be taken from. There are even ultimate points of view that there won’t be enough power,” Alekseyev said.

“It’s probably impossible to build all this in one country. It’s certainly unrealistic within a year, two or three, even on condition of spending crazy money…It will take tens of years.”

Law enforcement entities would unlikely benefit from the clause on operators’ cooperation in decoding, he said. If there is a need in such control, the government could also pay expenses as they have access to absolutely all traffic under the law, Alekseyev said.

(64.3212 rubles – U.S. $1)

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