Maxim Ali has provided his comments to Novaya Advokatskaya Gazeta about a draft bill relating to instant messengers

On 25 May, Novaya Advokatskaya Gazeta published an article titled ‘Less spam, more confidentiality’, in which lawyers analysed proposed legislation focused on regulating internet instant messengers and providing for users’ confidentiality.

Senior Associate from Maxima Legal, Maxim Ali, commented that operators of instant messengers already have obligations to store data of their users and correspondence between them; passing the new law will imposed further obligations on operators with threat of blocking their messengers should they fail to comply.  Users of messengers in particular will identifiable by unique subscriber numbers.

This is a clear step by the state to make instant messengers a less anonymous place for correspondence. Governmental bodies, when necessary, will be able to find out, not only about the existence of correspondence and their content, but also receive evidence linking correspondence to a specific person.

To read Maxim’s full comments on this topic and the article, please visit: advgazeta.ru