Last year, Russia adopted the Yarovaya package, which implies a change in two laws. One of them directly affects the business of telecom operators and providers, increasing financial pressure to critical scales for the industry. While the timing of the introduction of amendments into force, technical details are being considered, but it is already clear that the "Yarovaya package" launched a wave of legislative changes in all countries of the post-Soviet space. Freedoms and rights are shrinking, state control of the digital space is increasing. At the same time, the goal of innovations - safety for society - is unlikely to be achieved.

Exactly one year has passed since the Yarovaya package was first presented to the State Duma. Legislative innovations have become one of the most controversial ones adopted in Russia over the past decade. The Yarovaya Package was even included in the list of the ten worst legislative initiatives in the field of ICT in the world for 2016 by the Information Technology and Innovation Fund. Many Russian companies and associations opposed the adoption of these laws. Among them are the Russian Association for Electronic Communications (RAEC), the Regional Public Center for Internet Technologies (ROCIT), Yandex, Mail.Ru Group and many others. DR Analytica assessed the impact of the Yarovaya package on ICT in Russia, as well as in the countries of the Eurasian region, a year after the first presentation to the public.

Evolution of consideration

• On April 11, 2016, a member of the State Duma Irina Yarovaya, together with Senator Viktor Ozerov, presented two bills for consideration that had a significant effect on Russian ICT legislation. The original purpose of the documents was to improve measures to counter terrorism and extremism and to toughen penalties for such activities;
• On May 13, 2016, the package of bills was adopted after the first reading;
• On June 24, 2016, the Duma adopted both documents in the second and third readings;
• On July 7, 2016, the Yarovaya Law was finally signed by President V.V. Putin;
• On July 19, 2016, a member of the Federation Council Anton Belyakov, representing the Just Russia party, introduced a bill calling for the postponement of the implementation of the Yarovaya law until 2023;
• On July 20, 2016, most of the legal innovations of the Yarovaya Law entered into force;
• On January 19, 2017, the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation stated that the amount of information to be stored in accordance with the "Yarovaya law" can be reduced by 10 times;
• On April 4, 2017, the State Duma Council sent Senator Belyakov's bill to the highest state authorities for further discussion.

Meaning of sentences

The Yarovaya package consists of two bills:

• Federal Law No. 374-FZ of July 6, 2016 “On Amendments to the Federal Law“ On Countering Terrorism ”and certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation in terms of establishing additional measures to counter terrorism and ensure public safety”;
• Federal Law of July 6, 2016 No. 375-FZ "On Amendments to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation in terms of establishing additional measures to counter terrorism and ensure public safety."

The first bill obliges telecom operators to store messages and calls from subscribers for a period of time established by the Government of the Russian Federation (but not more than 6 months) in accordance with Article 64 of the Federal Law "On Communications", as well as store metadata of such calls and messages for three years.

The second bill supplemented the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation with three new crimes:

• assistance to extremist activities;
• failure to report a terrorist crime;
• committing an act of international terrorism.

Some of the original provisions were removed from the final version of the laws:

• In the first version of the bill, it was proposed to prohibit leaving Russia for people who received a warning about the inadmissibility of committing illegal actions in a pre-trial manner. In the second reading, the deputies changed this amendment: in some articles (for example, for persons convicted of terrorism and extremism), they proposed to prohibit people with an outstanding or unexpunged convictions from leaving Russia under certain articles. As a result, the parliamentarians decided to abandon these amendments.
• Before the second reading, the deputies rejected the proposal to deprive people of citizenship who committed terrorist acts or extremist crimes, as well as those who cooperate with international organizations.

Waiting for the consequences

According to the first bill (also called the Yarovaya Law), by July 1, 2018, all telecom operators are obliged to store calls and messages of their customers for 6 months, and the metadata of these communications - 3 years. However, back on July 19, 2016, the day before most of the legal innovations of the Yarovaya Law came into force, a member of the Federation Council Anton Belyakov proposed a bill according to which the implementation of the Yarovaya Law should be postponed for 5 years - until 2023.

Anton Belyakov's proposal was accepted for consideration by the State Duma Council and on April 4, 2017, was sent to the President, the State Duma Commission, State Duma factions, the Federation Council and other supreme executive bodies for further discussion. The above bodies must submit their comments and / or proposals to the State Duma Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption by May 4, 2017. Further developments are expected during the spring session of the State Duma in May 2017.

The main technical problem with the entry into force of the Yarovaya Law is that telecom operators do not have the necessary equipment to store such big data, as well as the simply enormous costs required to acquire it. Thus, the main reasons for criticizing the "Yarovaya Law" were not restrictions on citizens' information freedoms, but the inability to comply with the law, as well as huge costs for telecommunication service providers. The law requires a lot of money and can lead to many Internet companies, especially small operators - too much data needs to be monitored, collected and stored.

Major operators of ICT services, such as Megafon, MTS, VimpelCom and Tele2, said that more than 2.2 trillion rubles would be required to implement the Yarovaya law, which in turn is comparable to more than 10% of the Russian budget. Relaxing the law could reduce costs for operators who offer alternative solutions to the problem. One of them is the progressive implementation of the provisions of the law. However, the exact costs can only be determined after the government determines the exact time frame and specific formats and volumes of data storage.

On January 19, 2017, the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications offered to the amount of stored information and thus reduce business costs. In general, representatives of the private sector, with some support from the executive power in the person of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, are trying to soften the law and achieve its abolition, at least partially. But the positions of the judiciary and legislative authorities remain unshakable: the abolition of the "fundamental law that protects Russians from the global terrorist threat" is impossible.

Moreover, the security forces, in particular the FSB, even reject the law and its gradual implementation, insisting on its full implementation. According to the FSB, all the technical details for the implementation of the law have already been thought out. By June 30, 2017, the FSB plans to submit a regulation specifying information on how and in what format Russian operators should store data.

Yarovaya Package launched a wave of legislative changes

Now one can observe two parallel trends associated with the "Yarovaya law": while critics and opponents of the law are trying to reduce the consequences of the implementation of the law by proposing amendments and deletions of some provisions to it, the very fact of the law's adoption inspired Russian legislators to create new bills and laws that still increase government control of the Internet and ICT sectors more. Among such legislative innovations, the following can be noted:

• The Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation has developed rules for restricting access to inappropriate content, which allow. The new instruction will help to avoid situations when blocking one blacklist leads to the disruption of all websites on the same IP address.
• The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS), Roskomnadzor and other agencies are working on a new bill that will allow the court to access sites that violate Russian law. The document will be presented this spring.
• The Russian government creates a new division within the Russian Guard. The group will identify threats to Russia's information security, respond to cyberattacks and monitor social networks for the promotion of extremism on the Internet. There is also a plan to create an integrated web space monitoring system. It is worth noting that Rosgvardia is gradually turning into a separate security agency.
• At the end of March 2017, the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications prepared a draft amendments to the rules for the provision of communication services in the framework of the implementation of the "Yarovaya law". The draft contains a proposal to demand: from subscribers - to list all possible gadgets and devices, for sellers - and to check their personal data.

Impact on the region

The adoption of the Yarovaya Law influenced legislators in other post-Soviet countries. For example, the Kyrgyz Republic adopted the Law of the Kyrgyz Republic of July 1, 2016 No. 97 "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts (to the Civil Procedure Code of the Kyrgyz Republic, the Law of the Kyrgyz Republic" On Counteracting Extremist Activity ")". Among the provisions of the law there is a temporary restriction of access to information materials containing extremist signs.

(EKC), through which international communication and Internet services of all operators and providers of the country are accumulated, was created in Tajikistan. The authorities said that the purpose of creating the structure is "to ensure national and information security", as well as the ability to control "gray traffic" and telephone conversations. However, experts believe that this law, first of all, strengthens state control over telecom operators, and not the fight against terrorism.

Even Ukraine, which is in a state of hybrid war with Russia because of the events in Crimea and Donbass, is developing its own analogue of the Yarovaya Law. will allow law enforcement agencies to expand access to personal information of citizens. Telecom operators and ISPs will have to store user data for 90 days, and courts will be allowed to block Internet resources.

The Yarovaya Law has increased the regional trend of strengthening state control over the ICT sector. Many states of Eurasia seek to improve their security under the auspices of the fight against terrorism and other social threats.

State security& citizens and business

A year after the first presentation of the bill to the public, the price of "security" looks too high. It seems that the Russian authorities are trying to achieve state security while ignoring the freedoms of society and the costs of business. However, the actions taken by the government do not fully correspond to the set goals.

According to a recent website, the "Yarovaya law" is, in fact, not very conducive to ensuring the country's security. The expert community believes that the impact of the law on security was not positive and at the same time led to a reduction in freedom and an increase in the costs of its implementation for business. Therefore, the Russian state is the only beneficiary of the Yarovaya law, and even then only in the field of state security. Although the official position of the authorities is that the law is primarily aimed at protecting citizens from terrorism.

Legislation in Eurasia "The Price of Freedom and Security" for 2016 from the site showed the following results for this law: the only positive assessment of this law in the field of security is for the public sector. It should be noted that the economic effect for business received the worst estimate.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the Yarovaya anti-terrorist package, his press secretary Dmitry Peskov said.

"The President signed a package of documents, amendments to the law on measures to counter terrorism," Peskov quoted Interfax as saying. Also, he added, a list of instructions to the government was signed.

"The government will strictly monitor how this law will be implemented, and if some really undesirable manifestations are revealed, it will take appropriate measures on behalf of the president," Peskov explained.

Putin instructed the FSB to "approve the procedure for the certification of encryption (encryption) means for transmitting messages" on the Internet, according to the Kremlin's website. The President instructed the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications "to conduct an analysis and submit proposals regarding the possibility, timing and amount of financial costs in order to organize the production of domestic equipment and create domestic software necessary for storing and processing voice information, written text, images, sounds, video or other electronic communications from users ".

July 7, 15:01 In 2016, the prices for communication will not rise, assured the Minister of Communications and Mass Media of Russia Nikolai Nikiforov. He did not comment on the possible increase in tariffs in 2017 and 2018.

"It is safe to say: in 2016, no increase in prices for communication services is expected as a result of the adoption of a package of anti-terrorist laws," TASS quoted Nikiforov as saying.

July 7, 19:14 The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) of Russia will check the validity of the increase in tariffs for communications, if operators explain their increase in compliance with the requirements of the anti-terrorist package of laws. Elena Zayeva, head of the FAS Communications and Information Technology Regulation Department, told TASS about this: "If prices rise, we will investigate it. We believe that additional investments will be needed, but we cannot say about the volume, we have no data for this."

July 8, 10:42 The collection of signatures against the "Yarovaya package" has begun on the website of the Russian Public Initiative. "This law requires a lot of money and can lead to bankruptcy of many Internet companies, and reduce government revenue from taxes received from them. It also infringes on human rights," the authors of the initiative say.

July 8, 15:13 Russian Post will have to spend 500 billion rubles in order to fulfill the provisions of the Yarovaya package. The money will be used to purchase special equipment and attract trained specialists to all 42,000 post offices, the state-owned company said. Interfax writes about this:

"With this, more than 100 billion rubles will need to be allocated annually for its maintenance and remuneration of personnel responsible for monitoring the receipt of postal items," the message says.

The Russian Post is obliged by law to check the parcels for the presence of explosives and poisonous substances. In addition, the postal operator is obliged to take measures to prevent the mailing of weapons, explosives, poisonous plants and animals, drugs, poisons, money, perishable products. For this, postal workers can use X-ray devices, radioscopic devices, metal detectors, gas analyzers, chemical equipment, and other devices that help to detect weapons and explosives.

“Given the scale and vast geography of our country, the implementation of legislative changes will require serious study and resources, both in terms of their technical and financial support,” the Russian Post notes.

According to the postal operator, the law requires "a more detailed study and understanding of both the volume of real financial costs and their sources, so that its implementation does not affect the efficiency of the functioning of the most important social infrastructure of the state, which the postal service has always been and remains."

July 9, 12:23 pm The Russian Post admitted that because of the "Yarovaya package" they would accept parcels open, RBC reports with reference to Sergei Malyshev, deputy general director for forwarding business of the state company. The post office can start working this way if "the law does not oblige to equip all 42 thousand post offices with expensive X-ray television equipment."

Malyshev recalled that this "practice has already been repeatedly used in post offices during events requiring increased security measures, for example, during the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi."

July 13, 11:20 Because of the Yarovaya "package", the average cost of delivery of parcels may increase by 60% - up to 400 rubles per item, writes "Vedomosti" with reference to Alexander Ivanov, president of the National Association of Distance Selling.

According to Ivanov, as a result, people will start buying in online stores by 30-40% less: buyers are unlikely to be interested in goods, the delivery of which is more expensive than themselves.

July 14, 14:55 Moscow City Hall agreed a rally against the "Yarovaya package" - it will be held on July 26 from 18:00 to 20:30 on the Yauzskie Vorota square in the center of Moscow.

July 22, 11:58 The mayor's office did not allow the rally, said the head of the regional security department of the capital, Alexei Mayorov.

“On July 26, a group of citizens on behalf of Leonid Volkov, Ivan Zhdanov and Yevgeny Zamyatin submitted an application related to the protection of Articles 23 and 24 of the Constitution and Internet freedom. ", - Mayorov told Interfax.

Leonid Volkov, one of the organizers, wrote on his blog that the mayor's office had banned the rally "for far-fetched reasons":

On July 11, they submitted an application to hold a rally on July 26 on Slavyanskaya Square; Three days later, on July 14, the mayor's office responded by proposing to postpone the rally to the Yauzskie Vorota square. Although their proposal was not motivated (did not contain any reference to any of the legal reasons for postponing the rally), we, following our strategy, immediately agreed. I was in Novosibirsk at the trial, so that same evening Ivan Zhdanov, one of the three applicants, took our consent to the postponement to the mayor's office.

According to the law on public events, from this moment the rally is considered agreed. Dot. There can be no discrepancies here, and the practice of holding rallies has developed quite well in recent years.

Suddenly yesterday, July 21 in the evening - a week after the agreement! - Zhdanov is summoned to the mayor's office and said: "You know, we changed our minds." And they give a formal reason: you know, here you have three applicants (this is standard practice - formally one is responsible for the general organization, one for medicine and one for security), and in your consent to the proposal to postpone there is only one signature (Zhdanova). "So we believe that you did not agree with the postponement, therefore the rally was not agreed."

This, of course, is nonsense. We hold rallies not for the first or for the tenth time, the procedure is standard and based on the law, it always arranged the mayor's office, as it did throughout the week - until yesterday evening. It is quite obvious that some bosses from among the real authors of the Yarovaya package called them and made a hysteria, only this can explain the actions of the mayor's office.

July 26, 13:35 The organizers of the rally are submitting a new application - for 19:00 on Tuesday, August 9. Details are posted on his blog by Leonid Volkov.

August 1, 10:09 The capital's authorities agreed to a rally on August 9, but offered to hold it in Sokolniki Park, and not on the Yauzskiye Vorota square, Vasily Oleinik, the first deputy head of the Moscow Department of Regional Security and Anti-Corruption, told RIA Novosti. "We offered them to hold a public event in the park, in Sokolniki ... There is no answer yet," he said.

August 2, 12:35 pm The organizers of the rally agreed to hold it on August 9 in Sokolniki, RIA Novosti reports.

August 4, 02:47 In Russia, the equipment necessary for the execution of the Yarovaya package is not produced, the Izvestia newspaper reports, citing sources close to the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications. The information was confirmed to the publication by MegaFon, Beeline and MTS.

“We know what equipment the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications plans to recommend, but the document itself [sent to the Ministry of Industry and Trade] has not been seen,” said Dmitry Petrov, director of relations with authorities of Megafon. - Megafon periodically purchases similar equipment. Russian companies did not participate in these purchases, and we do not know that they produce such equipment.

Official representatives of MTS Dmitry Solodovnikov and VimpelCom company Anna Aibasheva also confirmed that Russia does not produce the entire line of equipment to meet the requirements of the law.

Moreover, certain types of hardware and software systems, for example, for picking up, cataloging and storing an array of information, are not mass-produced not only in Russia, but also in the world, - noted Solodovnikov.

We have created a chat in Telegram for a quick exchange of news. If you became an eyewitness of an event or just found important news, send it rather here:

An RBC source close to one of the Troika's operators said that not only MegaFon is not immediately deploying a system for storing information according to the Yarovaya law to the whole country. He noted that the introduction of SORM-2 (designed to monitor Internet activity) in the 2000s and SORM-3 (for storing metadata - for example, who called whom, when) since 2014 also did not occur simultaneously.

What does the "Yarovaya law" prescribe?

The package of anti-terrorism amendments, known as the Yarovaya Law, was adopted in July 2016. Among other things, he ordered, from July 1, 2018, telecom operators and organizers of the dissemination of information on the Internet (ORI, these include e-mail services, instant messengers, social networks and other Internet sites where users can exchange messages) to keep records for up to six months calls, message content and other user communication. The metadata retention period was increased for operators to three years, and for ARIs - up to a year.

The law stipulated that the timing and amount of information that needs to be stored should be clarified by the government. In April, a corresponding decree was published concerning telecom operators: they must keep text messages and recordings of conversations for six months from the moment of "the end of their reception, transmission, delivery and (or) processing." For operators that provide data transmission services (Internet providers), the storage period will be 30 days starting from October 1, 2018. For the next five years, companies must annually increase by 15% the capacity of "technical storage facilities" (equipment on which Internet traffic will be stored). On Tuesday, June 26, the government approved a halt setting the retention period for recordings of conversations and correspondence for ORI: like for telecom operators, it is six months.

But until now, documents with technical requirements for equipment that should be used to store information have not been adopted. In particular, according to a representative of Rostelecom, the state operator has not yet included in its budget the costs of fulfilling the requirements for data storage within the framework of the law. "Despite the fact that the decree of the Russian government on the storage periods has already been published, to estimate the costs, it is necessary to wait for the release of documents with the requirements for the equipment," he said. The representative of this operator did not answer the question whether they will begin to comply with the requirements of the law from July 1.

According to Sergei Soldatenkov, this [unapproved equipment requirements] is "an ambiguous situation," but the content of the documents will not come as a surprise to operators, since there are drafts of these requirements. MegaFon proceeds from the past experience, when in 2013 the so-called principle of MNP (mobile number portability, the ability to save your phone number when changing a mobile operator) was adopted. RBK). The normative legal acts clarifying it were adopted two days before its entry into force. “We all stood on our heads for two or three months during the preparation for them and did not want to go down this path. Therefore, six months [prior to the entry into force of the requirements of the Yarovaya Law], certain tests of solutions and storage schemes were carried out. If there are any changes in the requirements that will be adopted, our suppliers are ready to change their solutions for them, ”Soldatenkov said.

The main question remains unresolved - what will be the responsibility of operators and Internet companies for failure to comply with the requirements of the "Yarovaya Law". However, according to Soldatenkov, even if such documents had already been approved, the state would hardly have punished the operator. “If we say that we are going according to plan, then I don’t think there will be any claims. The question on the part of the state is not to punish the operator, but to make it possible to ensure the storage of data, ”he explained.

According to Denis Frolov, head of the commercial practice of the law firm BMS Law Firm, MegaFon and other operators must comply with the requirements of the law even in the absence of regulatory legal acts, the acts only “concretize the law”.

Expensive speed

In 2016, the expert working group "Communications and Information Technologies" under the Russian government predicted the costs of operators for storing data under the "Yarovaya Law" at 5.2 trillion rubles. However, later the estimates were adjusted several times. In the spring of 2018, MTS required an amount of 60 billion rubles. for the next five years - 35-40 billion rubles, - 45 billion rubles.

According to Olga Sokolova, general director of Linxdatacenter in Russia (a provider of communications and data processing centers), the amount of storage costs really depends on what configuration of SORM and requirements for equipment manufacturers will be approved in the documents. She noted that so far, the company has not observed a special surge in appeals in connection with the Yarovaya law. “So far, no one knows in what form the state will ask market participants to implement the requirements of the law. It is one thing if a phased procedure is adopted, say, within three years. A completely different scenario, if full compliance needs to be achieved in, say, several months, ”says Sokolova. She expects the situation to clear up after July 1.

Law abiding foreigners

Stefan Richard, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the international Orange group, told RBC that the company follows the provisions of the legislation in any country in which it operates, and from July 1 is ready to comply with the requirements of the Yarovaya Law. “In Europe, we understand what a terrorist threat is, especially in France. After the events of 2015, we began to cooperate more closely with the authorities, ”he said. The company does not disclose how much it spent preparing to meet the requirements. However, the head of Orange Business Services (a division of Orange) in Russia, Richard van Wageningen, explained that given the fact that the company operates here only in the b2b segment and has a limited number of corporate clients, the costs were low.

In July 2017, the Internet Research Institute (IIR) released a report in which it indicated that the "Spring law" is the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), which entered into force in the European Union in May 2018. The IIR indicated that, according to the GDPR, in order to store information about the facts of user communication, there must be a corresponding confirmation from the special services. If Russian operators store information about foreigners on their servers without the user's consent and without a court decision to provide this data to Russian law enforcement agencies, European legislation will be violated, the report said.

However, according to a spokesman for Orange, the company sees that it can comply with the requirements of both laws to the extent that they apply to it. He noted that from the point of view of the GDPR, a company in the course of providing services is a “processor” (an individual or legal entity, a government agency, an institution that processes personal data on behalf of the “operator” - the one with whom the data processing agreement was concluded). “It is also important to note that issues related to national security are removed from the scope of the GDPR, and the Yarovaya law refers precisely to this area, which even follows from the official name,” an Orange spokesman said.

On July 1, the Russians closely watched football, and then unrestrainedly celebrated the exit of our football team to the quarterfinals of the World Cup. On this day, for sure, many of us emotionally discussed the past game, but how many thought that these conversations were recorded? For another six months, our cries, sobs, words of pride and gratitude will be stored on the servers of mobile operators - even if we forget about them the next day.
The thing is that on the same day with the match with the Spaniards, another, less noticeable event happened: the final part of the once sensational “Yarovaya package” came into force. Why this law generated a wave of discontent, whether it will turn the Russian Internet (or maybe the whole Russian life) and what now you need to know before sending a message - we will tell you about all this in our material.

What did you put in this "package"?

For the first time, they started talking about the Yarovaya law back in April 2016. Then the State Duma deputy from the "United Russia" Irina Yarovaya and now half-forgotten senator from the same party Viktor Ozyorov submitted a package of amendments to parliament, supposedly designed to protect citizens from terrorism. Some provisions of the bill turned out to be so radical that they were removed from the final version: for example, it was proposed to deprive persons convicted of terrorism of their citizenship and prohibit people who had not extinguished their convictions under articles for extremism from leaving the country.

The bill caused a huge public outcry. The petition against its adoption on the change.org portal collected more than 600 thousand signatures, and on the official website of the ROI, in less than a month, 100 thousand votes were collected, which were necessary for the consideration of the appeal by the Open Government. A series of protest rallies took place across the country, and experts of the Internet industry announced a real catastrophe that awaits Runet if the law is adopted. Regular users did not stand aside - the ill-fated package became the reason for mocking videos and many memes.

Don't rustle!

Nevertheless, the law passed 3 readings in the State Duma, received the approval of the Government and the Federation Council, and on July 7 of the same year the last bastion fell - it was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Most of the amendments came into force in less than 2 weeks - July 20. Among them:

• Criminal punishment for "non-reporting", justification of terrorism in social networks, "incitement" to riots, introduction of an article for "international terrorism";
• Increasing the terms of punishment under "extremist" articles, decreasing the age of responsibility for them to 14 years;
• Checking by carriers of any parcels for the presence of prohibited items;
• Banning missionary work for unregistered organizations and banning sermons outside churches, cemeteries and other specially designated places;
• Provision of so-called "encryption keys" of data to law enforcement agencies by court order.

The most heated debate has erupted over the clause on storing user traffic. Initially, it was planned to store calls, messages, metadata about them (that is, information about calls and messages made) and all Internet traffic for 3 years. However, it turned out that this requirement is impracticable - there are no such capacious servers in the world, Russia does not produce enough electricity to power them, and the implementation costs were estimated at five trillion rubles (for comparison, in 2015 the entire Internet industry earned 1.7 trillion rubles , and the income of the federal budget of Russia amounted to 14.7 trillion rubles). As a result, it was decided:

• From July 1, 2018, store all phone calls, SMS messages and metadata about them for six months;
• From October 1 of the same year, telecom operators store correspondence, video and audio files and personal data of users for a month. The shelf life must be increased by at least 15% annually, gradually bringing it up to six months.

How will Yarovaya's law affect our lives?

But what does the new law promise to ordinary people like you and me? First of all, talking about it, they remember the rise in the price of the Internet. The first confirmations appeared in June this year: the majority of Russian providers raised their rates by an average of 10%. Operators presented this in a veiled way: they say, we are not only raising prices, but also the speed of your tariff. Considering that data warehouses by law will need to be increased annually, such indexing will probably become commonplace. In addition, you need to be prepared for a gradual rise in price or the abolition of unlimited tariffs: after all, the volume of our traffic costs operators a pretty penny.

A significant rise in the cost of postage was also predicted. According to the calculations of the Russian Post, equipping all of its 42 thousand branches with special X-ray units for the required inspection of parcels would cost half a trillion rubles. As a compromise, the carrier offered to accept all parcels in an open video, but this would still not solve the problem of delivering goods from abroad: no one would (or at least should not) open the box with a phone sent from China. As a result, the regulation on the inspection of items has been in effect for two years, and the internal rules for sending either the Russian Post or other private companies have not changed significantly. In fact, the norm of the law is simply not being implemented.

However, the rise in prices for services is far from the only negative consequence of the Yarovaya package. In June, the Russian company MFI-soft (previously it produced equipment for Roskomnadzor) presented prices for certified data centers for operators. The cost of the server, which allows storing traffic of 7-8 thousand subscribers, was estimated at 37 million rubles. In fact, this is several annual revenues collected from such subscribers. And if large federal operators with other sources of income can still find this money, then small regional providers simply have nowhere to take such an amount at once. According to the law, foreign analogs of equipment cannot be used either. In fact, this may mean the ruin of small providers and monopolization of the market, in which large operators will buy up their subscriber base from local ones. Such a scenario will make our Internet one step closer to the Chinese one: several large operators are much easier to control, especially if you suddenly need to disconnect the Russian segment of the Internet from the world.

Finally, the Yarovaya law affected the operation of some services in Russia. Now, any company that uses any encryption protocol in its application will have to, by court order, provide the security authorities with a "key" that will allow access to the user's correspondence and other data. It was this provision of the law that became the reason for blocking the Telegram messenger in Russia (by the way, do not forget to subscribe to our "blocked" channel). Moreover, the service representatives were even ready to provide the FSB with the very correspondence of terrorist suspects, but the special services needed exactly the "keys". In general, you know the continuation of the story.

So what to do now?

Do not delude yourself that the Yarovaya law is only needed to ensure our security. The fight against extremism is understood by our security officials very broadly. For example, single mother Yekaterina Vologzheninova received a year of compulsory work for Vkontakte posts supporting the Ukrainian military. Engineer Andrei Bubeev was sentenced to two years and three months in a penal colony for two repost of opposition articles. And blogger Ruslan Sokolovsky, who played Pokemon Go in the temple, was even included in the list of terrorists and extremists, having blocked all his bank accounts. In general, there is a reason to think about how not to end up in a similar situation.

Even during the discussion of the Yarovaya bill, many providers talked about the uselessness of the transmitted data - they say, 80% of the traffic on the network is encrypted anyway, and it will only take up space. It's true. Most modern sites (including ours) work over the secure https protocol. If you go to such a site, the provider can only find out about the fact of connecting to it - and that's it. Nobody will know that you are reading this particular article, and not choosing a scooter for your child.

But if you want no one to even know which sites you are visiting, and all your traffic is encrypted, you should use a VPN. In this case, Comrade Major will only see how you have connected to a server somewhere in the Netherlands or Hong Kong. In addition to encrypting traffic, VPN has another important advantage - it will allow you to use services and websites blocked in Russia (Telegram, again). There are a lot of VPN services on the market themselves, most of them are very inexpensive, and some are completely free; we will tell you about their types and features in a separate article (very soon).

However, a VPN will not save you if the FSB demands access to your data from a third party, not a provider. The so-called "Information dissemination organizers" from the Roskomnadzor register must also store your data for six months. This list contains:

• "In contact with";
• "Classmates";
• Mail.Ru services (mail, cloud, etc.);
• Yandex (mail and cloud);
• less popular services and sites.

If you use any products from the ARI registry, be prepared for the fact that, by a court decision, your files and correspondence will end up in the hands of the special services. Perhaps you should use these services carefully and not trust them with any personal information; this also applies to phone calls and SMS. Or it makes sense to abandon such resources in favor of those that are not yet in the registry: Google, Facebook, Viber and others.

Your correspondence will be completely safe if you use a messenger with end-to-end encryption: this technology allows you to transfer data to your interlocutor's phone bypassing the company's servers. This function is implemented, for example, in WhatsApp, secret Telegram chats and Vkontakte calls.

In general, Mrs. Yarovaya and the Russian authorities are greatly increasing our Internet literacy and even instilling an important habit: you also need to protect yourself on the Internet. For this, perhaps, even worth thanking them. And by the way, we will tell you a lot of interesting and useful information about technologies in Russia and around the world, so subscribe to the Zen channel, Telegram channel and Inspector Gadgets newsletter!

On June 24, 2016, the State Duma is likely to adopt in the second and third readings the "anti-terrorist" package introduced by State Duma Deputy Irina Yarovaya and Senator Viktor Ozerov (commonly known as the "Yarovaya package"). It contains amendments to dozens of laws that expand the powers of the state, tighten control over the inhabitants of the country and limit the rights guaranteed to citizens by the Constitution. If the law is adopted, of which there is no big doubt, the authorities will have the opportunity to deprive Russians of citizenship, not to let out of the country those convicted of "wrong" reposting, to gain access to all telephone conversations and electronic correspondence of citizens. Most of the amendments will enter into force on July 20. Meduza talks about the most important points of the Yarovaya package.

The authorities will be able to deprive people of citizenship - including for work in international organizations

On the evening of June 22, the text of the Yarovaya package for the second reading disappeared from the electronic database of the Duma. On June 23, it became known that the amendments on deprivation of citizenship were completely excluded from the documents.

The Constitution states: "A citizen of the Russian Federation may not be deprived of his citizenship or the right to change it." But if Irina Yarovaya's bill is adopted, the authorities will be able to deprive people of citizenship who have citizenship of another country or a guarantee that they will receive it.

Irina Yarovaya's bill proposes to deprive citizens of citizenship for certain terrorist and extremist crimes. In the list of these crimes there is, for example, the well-known 282nd article ("incitement to hatred and enmity") - one of those by which one can sit down for reposting a picture on a social network. Another example from the list: Article 280.1 - calls for separatism. A person convicted under one of the listed articles is deprived of his citizenship on the day the sentence comes into legal force. But only if he has the citizenship of another country or a guarantee of obtaining it.

Citizenship will also be deprived of those people with dual citizenship who go to serve in a foreign army, law enforcement or judicial authorities. Or they will - without the consent of the Russian authorities - participate in the work of international organizations in which Russia (apparently, as a state) is not represented. People from both of these categories will be deprived of their citizenship on the day they start working. How exactly this regulation will work is unknown. What in this context means "international organization" and whether those who worked in them before the adoption of the new law will be deprived of citizenship is also not entirely clear.

A direct constitutional ban on depriving Russians of citizenship is bypassed by the authors of the Yarovaya package quite simply. The constitution allows "voluntary withdrawal from Russian citizenship." It is proposed to consider work in international organizations or foreign government bodies as "the voluntary expression of the will of a person, expressed in the form of actions."

At the same time, the deputies deliberately or accidentally removed one of the restrictions for those who decided to renounce Russian citizenship on a truly voluntary basis - upon a written application. Previously, if a person did not have another citizenship or a guarantee of obtaining it, he was not allowed to refuse a Russian passport; now there is no such limitation.

For non-reporting, they will also be deprived of citizenship. And put in jail. This is a new article of the Criminal Code

The new article of the Criminal Code (205.6) is called “failure to report a crime”. According to it, those who did not inform the law enforcement agencies “about the person (persons) who, according to reliably known information, prepares, commits or has committed” crimes of certain categories will be brought to justice. Yarovaya's bill introduces a list of 15 crimes, the preparation of which must now be reported in order not to end up in the dock himself: from international terrorism to an armed rebellion directed against the territorial integrity of Russia. The maximum penalty for failure to inform is imprisonment for up to one year. In addition, non-reporting is included in the list of crimes for which deputies propose to revoke citizenship. That is, inaction - non-communication will be considered a "form of action".

People who did not report the preparation and commission of a crime by their spouse or close relative are exempted from liability under the article - in this the Constitution is observed.

Introduce another article that can be used for posts in social networks

The bill increases accountability for incitement to terrorist activity and the justification of terrorism on the Internet. Now they will be equated with such appeals in the media; due to this, the punishment for calls to terrorism on the Internet will be tougher. The maximum is seven years in prison, with a further ban on holding some positions for up to five years (previously, public appeals threatened to be imprisoned for up to five years without further restrictions). And deprivation of citizenship.

The document specifies that the justification of terrorism will include "a public statement on the recognition of the ideology and practice of terrorism as correct, in need of support and imitation."

For a repost, you can not just sit down, but also become restricted to travel abroad

On June 23, it became known that the amendments banning leaving the country were excluded from the bill.

The authorities are introducing a new category of persons restricted to travel abroad. People with outstanding or unexpunged convictions for certain types of crimes will be deprived of the right to leave Russia. Some of these articles are named directly - by numbers. Basically they relate to crimes related to terrorism: terrorist attack, hostage-taking and others. The same list includes "violent seizure or retention of power", "encroachment on the life of a statesman", "armed rebellion." The same amendment includes all articles of "extremist orientation" - this is a large list of articles, including those by which people are judged for posts on social networks (for example, "calls for extremist activity").

The duration of the ban on leaving can be calculated in years. After a person has served his sentence, for some time his conviction is considered outstanding - for example, for an article on “inciting hatred or enmity” (282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), this period is three years. Sometimes a criminal record can be removed ahead of time - for exemplary behavior, by amnesty or pardon. Under the current legislation, people can go abroad before the expiration of their convictions - immediately after the execution of the sentence (for example, after being released from prison).

Participants in an expanded meeting of the board of the General Prosecutor's Office. Moscow, March 23, 2016

Photo: Mikhail Metzel / TASS / Scanpix / LETA

Operators will keep records of phone calls and all user correspondence for months. Law enforcement officers will be able to study this data

Telecommunications operators and “organizers of information dissemination” on the Internet will be obliged to store call records (“voice information”), correspondence, images, sounds, video and other messages of users on the territory of Russia. The storage period is up to six months from the date of transfer, acceptance and (or) processing. The register of "distribution organizers" can include the owner of any resource where electronic messages can be exchanged.

Operators will have to store information about the fact of receiving or transmitting a message or calls (that is, not the content, for example, of correspondence, but only information that it has taken place) for three years. All this data will need to be transferred to law enforcement agencies if they are needed for operational work. If the bill is adopted, the document will enter into force on July 1, 2018.

The encrypted correspondence will also be read. Or make everyone refuse encryption

The deputies propose a simple scheme to combat traffic encryption: to oblige the "organizers of information dissemination" who use "additional coding" of electronic messages to provide the FSB with information that will "decode" whatever is required. For refusal - a fine: for legal entities - from 800 thousand to a million rubles. The amendments are formulated in such a way that it is not entirely clear what kind of encoding we are talking about - about encryption in instant messengers or about any site with the encrypting HTTPS protocol.

At the same time, the bill introduces into the administrative code responsibility for the use of "uncertified coding (encryption) means when transmitting messages in the information and telecommunication network" Internet "". For legal entities - a fine from 30 to 40 thousand rubles with confiscation of illegal funds.

Now only special people will be able to preach in specially designated places. Some ideas will be forbidden to preach

The authorities want to regulate the religious sphere more strictly. In the article on freedom of conscience and religion, a definition of the concept of "missionary activity" will appear. The deputies consider this activity to be more or less any religious practice outside special institutions, cemeteries, places of worship, religious schools - services, ceremonies, distribution of literature and other materials, reading sermons. “Spreading faith and religious beliefs” through the media and on the Internet is also considered missionary work.

If the Yarovaya package is adopted, only representatives of registered organizations and groups - or people who have entered into an official agreement with them - will be able to carry out missionary activities. Each missionary should have documents with certain information confirming his affiliation with a particular organization or group. They want to ban any missionary activity in residential premises, except for worship, ceremonies and rituals. Foreign missionaries will be able to work only in those regions where the organization that invited them is registered.

The authorities want to legally prohibit the dissemination of certain ideas - for example, those that call for extremism, force people to refuse medical care, give their property to a religious organization and others. For violations, administrative fines are provided - including large ones, up to a million rubles.

The Sova Human Rights Center believes that the missionary amendments threaten not only unregistered religious groups, but also those who have registration - Protestants and new Christian religious movements. Even Orthodox missionaries may face difficulties.

For some crimes, the punishment will be much harsher.

The bill proposes to significantly toughen punishments for some crimes, and most of the changes concern articles of "extremist orientation". Now there are several types of punishments under these articles: fines, forced labor, prohibition to hold certain positions or engage in certain activities, as well as imprisonment. All forms of punishment have been toughened, and especially those related to imprisonment. Yarovaya's amendments either shift up the minimum and maximum terms of imprisonment, or introduce a lower threshold for punishment where it did not exist before.

For example, according to the existing law, if a person was convicted under one of the parts of Article 282 (“incitement to hatred and enmity”), which are not related to the use of violence, he can be imprisoned for a maximum of four years, and there is no lower threshold at all. Now the deputies are proposing to introduce a lower threshold of two years, and raise the upper one to five years.

Another example is the increased punishment under another article related to extremism - “Organization of an extremist community” (282.1). For participation in such communities, they will be imprisoned for a term of two to six years (previously the maximum term under this article was four years, and the lower threshold was not set), for organizing communities, they will be punished for a term of six to ten years (it was from two to eight). In addition, the deputies increased the punishment under the articles "Organization of the activity of an extremist organization" (282.2; it was from two to eight years, now - from six to ten), "Financing of extremist activity" (282.3; it was up to three years, now - from three to eight).

Yarovaya's amendments also increase the punishment for organizing an illegal armed group: now it will be from 10 to 20 years (previously it was from 8 to 15). Another example of tougher penalties is the amendment to the article of the Criminal Code on organizing illegal migration. It abolishes all types of punishment, except for imprisonment (while the term of imprisonment remains the same - up to five years). This means that the courts will no longer be able to sentence convicted persons to fines or forced labor.

Now you can sit down for "involvement in the organization of riots"

The previous version of the Criminal Code took into account responsibility for organizing, participating, calling for riots, as well as for undergoing training to participate in them. Now the article will be supplemented with one more part: in Russia they will also be judged for "declining, recruiting or otherwise involving" in organizing mass riots. The maximum punishment under this article is imprisonment for a term of five to ten years.

Introduce an article on international terrorism

A new article will appear in the Criminal Code - “Act of International Terrorism”. It will be used to judge those who are accused of committing a terrorist attack outside Russia, as a result of which Russian citizens were killed or injured, as well as those who finance the preparation of terrorist attacks. As a punishment, the article allows for life imprisonment.

Post office employees will be forced to check the parcels

The bill proposes an amendment that will oblige "postal operators" ("Russian Post" and private postal companies) to ensure that there is nothing prohibited in the parcels. The list of prohibited items for shipment includes: money, weapons, drugs, poisons, perishable food and substances that can harm postal employees or damage other parcels. It is proposed to check the parcels using X-rays, metal detectors and other similar devices. The existing law stipulates that employees can detain and even destroy parcels with prohibited items.

There will be more criminal articles, according to which one can judge from the age of 14

The new law greatly expands the list of articles by which adolescents who have reached the age of 14 can be judged. Previously, there were 22 such trains, now there are ten more. From the age of 14, it is now possible to be tried for international terrorism; for participation in terrorist communities, terrorist organizations and illegal armed groups; for completing training in terrorism; for participating in riots; for encroachment on the life of a statesman and public figure and for attacks on persons and institutions that enjoy international protection, as well as for hijacking an airplane, train or water transport.

In addition, the "anti-terrorism package" introduces liability for 14-year-olds for failure to report a crime. In the list of criminal articles for which juveniles can be tried, "non-reporting" is the only act that is not associated with violence and threats to public order in one form or another.