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Russia's telecoms face new ‘anti-terrorism’ requirements, but almost nobody can comply thanks to a regulatory bottleneck

Source: Meduza

Russian telecoms are now under hefty regulations requiring them to store six-month archives of all customers’ audio records, but they still don’t have the government-issued certificates needed to operate the necessary storage devices, according to the newspaper Kommersant.

Currently, for unexplained reasons, the only one with the required accreditation is the Central Scientific Research Communications Institute’s Testing Center for Certification and Metrology. The Russian Communications Ministry isn’t expected to accredit any other groups until the end of the year.

To complicate matters further, the Russian government has threatened to impose fines on telecoms that gather audio records on uncertified storage equipment.

Signed on June 26, 2018, and published two days later, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has issued a government order requiring Internet companies to start storing a vast array of user data. The requirements, established as part of Russia’s “anti-terrorism” Yarovaya law, apply to users’ text-based, audio, and visual correspondence dating back six months. Internet companies must make these archives available to Russian law enforcement, if requested. The requirements took effect on July 1.

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