Maxim Ali has provided his comments to Kommersant on the security of Telegram messenger and the demands against it from Roskomnadzor

In an article titled ‘Security leads to being blocked’, business newspaper Kommersant writes about the methods of encryption used in popular messengers and how their work in Russia is affected by government regulation.

The most popular messenger in recent times in Russia is Telegram, however in July of this year, Roskomnadzor (the state regulator for communications) threatened to block the messenger if its creator Pavel Durov did not comply with the demands of the regulator and provide information necessary for the messenger to be included in a register of organisations that spread information.

Senior Associate at Maxima Legal, Maxim Ali explained that already according to the law messengers must store logs of correspondence between its users.  From 1 July 2018 it will also be necessary to save the content of correspondence and also provide the Russian FSB with details to decipher any encrypted messengers.  Such requirements, according to Maxim, are counter to the policies of the company as declared by Mr Durov.  Maxim considers that a conflict between Telegram and Roskomnadzor has not been completely avoided and that in the near future we can expect to see further tension between the two.

For Maxim’s full comments on this topic and the article (in Russian), please click here.