Central Bank seeks to pre-trial blocking of sites from any jurisdiction

The Central Bank and the Ministry of Communications are preparing changes to Article 15.1 of the Law “On Information, Information Technologies and Protection of Information, ” Izvestia reports . Since January 2017, the Central Bank (Bank of Russia) has received the status of a “competent organization” from the Coordination Center of the national Internet domain network and the right to pretrially request registrars to block websites that distribute malware, websites with illegal content and phishing sites. But these powers apply only to zones .ru ".рф". New powers will allow the Central Bank to block sites from any jurisdiction, along with Roskomnadzor, Rospotrebnadzor, the Interior Ministry and the Federal Tax Service.

Each of the departments entrusted to monitor the sites of their subjects. So, Roskomnadzor finds and blocks sites with child pornography and suicide propaganda, the Ministry of Internal Affairs - sites with materials about drugs and trafficking in them, and the FTS is engaged in blocking online casinos. There is one nuance here. The fact is that, recently, the right of these departments may in the pretrial order block anonymizers and VPN . For example, the Federal Tax Service has been instructed to curb the activities of illegal casinos, sweepstakes and bookmakers on the Internet. It would seem that the task is highly specialized. But in accordance with the published order of June 27, 2017 No. 47207 ( pdf) The FTS acquires the right to block also anonymizers and VPNs, with the help of which one can get access to illegal casinos, sweepstakes and bookmakers. As you understand, these are any anonymizers, VPNs and Tor nodes.

Article 15.1 is called “The Unified Register of Domain Names, Website Indexes on the Internet” and network addresses that allow identification of websites on the Internet that contain information that is prohibited in the Russian Federation . ” It refers to the Resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation of 26.10.2012 No. 1101 . It describes what types of information on the Internet are subject to blocking in the pretrial order, and which authority is responsible for this.

Now the list is going to add: the Bank of Russia will have the right to make decisions on the illegality of the activities of financial organizations. Probably, all illegal financial pyramids, “forex”, foreign cryptocurrency exchanges will fall under the blocking (Central Bank is going to introduce its own Russian cryptocurrency), P2P lending exchanges, etc. The addresses of the relevant sites of the Central Bank will be sent to Roskomnadzor for inclusion in the black list.

The draft law is now being discussed by the Bank of Russia with the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media, the information was confirmed by the Central Bank: “Organizations that do not have Bank of Russia licenses, including those registered in foreign jurisdictions, are actively providing Internet services in the financial market,” explained the press service of the Central Bank. - First of all, it concerns the services of professional securities market participants, as well as forex dealers. In addition, the Internet is used to build financial pyramids. There are risks of violation of the rights and legitimate interests of Russian citizens. Trust in the activities of financial organizations and the domestic financial market as a whole is decreasing. ”