You have the right to anonymity. Part 2. Legislation against anonymity

The first attempts to eliminate anonymity on the Web at the legislative level in Russia began to appear in 2013.

Thus, Federal Law No. 97-ФЗ dated 05.05.2014 (“The Law on Bloggers and Organizers of the Dissemination of Information”, developed a year earlier) to the owners of pages on social networks or personal sites with a daily audience of more than three thousand users was prohibited from anonymous use of their own blogs on the network . According to the amended Article 10.2 of the Federal Law No. 149-ФЗ “On Information”, a person recognized by Roskomnadzor as a blogger is obliged to post his name and initials, an email address on his website or website page for sending legally significant messages to him. Currently in the appropriate registry of bloggersmore than 2,000 public and personal pages on VKontakte, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Google Plus, etc., have been entered by the supervisory authority. Yes, and ordinary, personal small sites are also included in the register nn-th amount.

But in the same law there is also an article about “information dissemination organizers” - these are the owners of network services, websites and software developers who were obliged by the FSB and Roskomnadzor to collect metadata from their users (all actions and interactions), store and provide them first requirement to the competent authorities. And since July 1, 2018, since the entry into force of the “Spring Package” ( No. 374-FZof July 6, 2016), or rather, those paragraphs of this law that relate to the implementation of total telephone and Internet surveillance of citizens, the organizers of the dissemination of information (like telecom operators) will be required to collect, store and share not only user metadata with special services, but also all their correspondence, calls, file sharing - all traffic generated on their sites or through their software. Almost all of the largest Russian Internet resources and services, such as Yandex, VKotakte, Mail.Ru, Odnoklassniki, dating services, various large and not very information resources, forums, sites, even such exotic as a page, have already been included

in this register of organizers. The “Republican Syktyvkar Neuropsychiatric Boarding School” is now underclose attention to the FSB. Habrahabr did not escape this fate, whose users, one of the first ( serial number 6 ), were wished to follow the secret services.

In 2014, legislation also affected anonymous payments. The Federal Law of the Russian Federation dated 05.05.2014 No. 110-ФЗ “On Amending Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation” was adopted with regard to tightening the requirements for the transfer of electronic funds ”. This law introduced new rules and amendments to a number of Federal laws, outlining the limit for anonymous Internet payments in the amount of 15,000 rubles.

However, undoubtedly, the “Spring package” adopted in 2016 brought the greatest damage to the Runet, which involves the disclosure of all user data (in fact, totally deanonymize all) and their electronic correspondence, calls, in a word, all generated traffic without a preliminary judicial act, as required by Articles 23-24 of the Constitution of Russia:

Article 23
1. Everyone has the right to privacy, personal and family secrets, protection of his honor and good name.
2. Everyone has the right to privacy of correspondence, telephone conversations, postal, telegraphic and other communications. The restriction of this right is allowed only on the basis of a court decision .

Article 24
1. The collection, storage, use and dissemination of information on the private life of a person without his consent is not allowed.
2. State authorities and local self-government bodies, their officials are obliged to provide everyone with the opportunity to familiarize themselves with documents and materials directly affecting their rights and freedoms, unless otherwise provided by law.

And also the article of Art. 13 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, which allows restricting a citizen’s right to confidentiality of correspondence, telephone and other conversations, postal, telegraphic and other messages only on the basis of a court decision .

According to the text of the law, all telecom operators and information dissemination organizers must keep records of calls of all their subscribers and the contents of text messages, including multimedia attachments, for six months, and information about communication sessions / metadata for three years (for telecom operators) and one years (for organizers of the dissemination of information). Companies are required to provide the content of messages and metadata to the competent authorities "to fulfill the tasks assigned to these bodies in cases established by federal laws." If users use encryption, the organizers of the distribution of information will need to provide the Federal Security Service with the keys to decrypt them. For failure to provide encryption keys on the company will be fined.

If in Russia before that they were struggling with anonymity at the level of individual amendments to the current legislation, recently it has become obvious that the Russian authorities have made the final decision to completely eliminate the possibility of anonymous use of the Internet. In continuation of the “Doctrine of Information Security”, adopted in December 2016, the President of Russia in May 2017 signed the “ Strategy for the Development of the Information Society for 2017-2030 ” developed by the Security Council of the Russian Federation". In paragraph 34 of the document it is indicated that for the development of the Internet and information infrastructure of the Russian Federation it is necessary to carry out activities at the international level, including “creating new partnership mechanisms designed to develop a system of trust on the Internet with the participation of all institutions of society that guarantees confidentiality and personal security users, the confidentiality of their information and the exclusive anonymity, irresponsibility of users and impunity of offenders on the Internet. ” Obviously, in the context of the adopted strategy, anonymity is seen as a defect in network communications, allowing criminals and offenders to evade legal liability.

In pursuance of the Presidential Decree in 2017-2018, new bills should be expected to combat anonymity and the technical means that provide it in a digital environment. However, such proposals have already been heard from the lips of federal officials for a long time, for example, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy and Deputy Leonid Levin , Internet Advisor to the President German Klimenko . And even a number of bills have been developed that offer to block anonymizers, VPN services and other software in case of their refusal to cooperate with Roskomnadzor, as well as fine citizens and legal entities for promoting their use.

And on May 24 of this year, the deputies of three factions introduced a new one to the State Duma.bill No. 184222-7 on the prohibition of the anonymity of instant messenger users, implying the introduction of appropriate amendments to the law "On Information". According to the text of the draft legislative document, the identification of the user is proposed to be carried out by cell phone number by agreement with telecom operators.

In addition to restricting “anonymity” in messengers, the bill obliges their administrators to comply with certain requirements of Roskomnadzor:
“The organizer of the distribution of information on the Internet, providing the provision of information and communication services for instant messaging (hereinafter the organizer of instant messaging), is obliged:
1) ensure the transmission of electronic messages only to those users of the Internet, who are identified in the manner established by the Government of the Russian Federation. Identification of Internet users is carried out by the telecom operator using a subscriber number on the basis of an identification agreement concluded by the organizer of the instant messaging with the telecom operator. The standard form of this agreement is approved by the federal executive body authorized by the Government of the Russian Federation;
2) provide the technical ability to refuse users to receive electronic messages from other users;
3) ensure the confidentiality of transmitted electronic messages;
4) provide the ability to send electronic messages on the initiative of public authorities in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation;
5) restrict, at the request of the authorized federal executive body, the distribution of mass electronic messages, as well as the transmission of electronic messages containing information distributed in violation of the requirements of the legislation of the Russian Federation;
6) provide the authorized federal executive body with information allowing telecom operators to fulfill the requirements established by Part 2.1 of Article 15.4 of this Federal Law. ”

Failure to fulfill these requirements may lead to the blocking of the messenger:
“In the event that the organizer of the instant messaging does not comply with the requirements of the authorized federal executive body on restricting the distribution of mass electronic messages, restricting the distribution of messages of unidentified users, restricting the publication and (or) transmission of electronic messages containing information distributed in violation of the laws of the Russian Federation, access to information systems and (or) programs for electronic computers, which is provided by this organizer of instant messaging, until such requirements are met, it is limited to the telecom operator that provides services to provide access to the Internet, immediately based on a decision of the authorized federal executive body,

The head of Roskomnadzor Alexander Zharov quite expectedly supported this new repressive bill on regulating the work of instant messengers.

And in 2013, the Public Council under the FSB of Russia proposed banning anonymizers. The need for this idea was explained by the fact that through them users can visit prohibited sites. An example was given by China and Belarus, where users bypass locks with the help of such programs.

In February 2016, it became knownthat on the part of AZAPI (non-profit partnership "Association for the Protection of Copyright on the Internet") a draft law has been developed introducing administrative responsibility for "advertising, propaganda or other calls for the use of special technical means and methods that allow unhindered access" to blocked Internet resources. According to AZAPI, this text has been approved by the working group under Roskomnadzor. This organization, for some reason considering the supervisory authority to be the subject of legislative initiative, will transfer the draft law to the ILV leadership for submission to the State Duma of the Russian Federation.

As you know, since 2012, Roskomnadzor maintains a register of banned sites, however, the use of the above software tools that replace the IP address of Russian users allows unlimited access to banned resources, which worries the authorities and media lobbyists who rely on anti-piracy law, which Allows you to block sites forever.

The second attempt to ban anonymizing on the territory of Russia by aggressive media lobbyists, now the Media and Communication Union, was made in the spring of 2017. To a greater extent, the draft law focuses on anonymizers, proxies, VPNs and search services, as it obliges them to block access to sites from the registry, otherwise they will be blocked.

Of course, the text of the proposed laws does not fit into any framework of constitutional norms and, in principle, of a reasonable attitude to the constructed infrastructure of the World Wide Web. Note that at present, the use of anonymizers, proxy servers, VPN services and TOR is not prohibited by law, nor is it forbidden to disseminate information about their use (confirmed by the position of Roskomnadzor and the position of the Ministry of Communications), however, the fight against them is relentlessly at the level of law enforcement practice .

Publications:
Part 1. Introduction and international practice.
Part 2. Legislation against anonymity.
Part 3. Law enforcement struggle with instruments of anonymity.
Part 4. (in development)
Part 5. (in development)

Prepared by:
Sarkis Darbinyan, Artyom Kozlyuk, Alyona Ryzhikova for the Center for the Protection of Digital Rights