Is Yarovaya a victim? The first provider left Russia



    VPN provider Private Internet Access (PIA) announced that it is leaving the Russian Federation. The company explained that they were forced to take this step by adopting the anti-terrorist “Spring package.” The company also indicated that the Russian authorities already control several of the company's servers in the country.
    “The Russian government has adopted a new law that obliges providers to store all Russian Internet traffic for up to a year. We are confident that due to pressure from the authorities surrounding the new law, some of our Russian servers have recently been seized by the Russian authorities without any warnings and proper procedures, ”the official statement reads.

    Representatives emphasized that there are no logs, personal information or information about sessions on those servers that the authorities are interested in, clients can not worry. The company said that as soon as it became known of such an interest, it closed all Russian gateways and stopped all activities in the country.

    “Yarovaya Package” is a set of bills developed by deputy Irina Yarovaya and Senator Viktor Ozerov. Despite heated debate and negative feedback from the relevant community, the document was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The essence of the document is that now providers are required to store logs and metadata for the time that the Government of the Russian Federation should establish. Vladimir Putin gave time until the fall to assess the costs and the optimal time for storing data. Also, providers will be required to cooperate with the authorities and transfer all data for decryption.

    According to lawyers of RUVDS, “panic on the ship” is still premature and resembles panic when adopting amendments to Federal Law 152 “On Personal Data”.

    “After examining the signed package of amendments, it is clear that at the moment there are radically no changes. According to article 13 of this package, providers are required to store data on facts of customer actions for 3 years after the specified fact, but customer data itself - for up to 6 months, despite the fact that the maximum storage period is uncertain and left to the discretion of the Government of the Russian Federation. Given the negative response to this law of the Minister of Communications Nikiforov, it is hoped that the deadlines will not be very long, and the industry itself will be given a margin of time for adaptation.

    If we talk about who may benefit from this panic, it is worth paying attention to telecom operators who are constantly looking for a reason to raise prices for communication services. If you recall, telecom operators were strongly against the abolition of “mobile slavery”, saying that they were technically not ready and that would be expensive, which means prices must be raised. However, since that time, Russians have become accustomed to the fact that the operator can be easily changed without losing the number, and prices are only falling due to high competition. And TELE-2 does not allow operators to relax in this matter.

    And now there is a distortion of facts. The law clearly states that the deadline for storing data (on the facts of customer transactions) is 180 days, and the minimum period is 0 days. The government decides what is the deadline for storing the customer’s data themselves, and as a result, they can refer to SORM and SORM-2 and not change anything at all. But the operators got a reason to raise prices or at least talk about it.

    In general, the bill itself does not look so radical, recalling how they approach such data in the West, especially in the USA. Edward Snowden described this in color, and if we take his revelations into account, it turns out that this law is really aimed at enhancing the security of law-abiding citizens.

    Therefore, we still believe that the panic is at least premature, and most likely simply unreasonable. ”


    Here is a translation of the comments of foreign internet users questioning the real reason for the PIA leaving Russia:

    Jason:
    You are very naive. Can you even imagine how much data is stored in the USA and Great Britain? We say “YOTABYTES” data. This is beyond what is happening in Russia. Do you know about US national security, which is protected through secret courts, and information about which cannot be disclosed without the risk of imprisonment? (And how funny is it that you complain about Russian hackers when many Western governments do the same? Or have we forgotten the revelations about the United States, Britain and Germany in recent years?)

    This crazy Russophobia that has developed over the past 2-3 years really brings me crazy. This is not reprehensible. You guys are not ready for the new European War

    Alex K.
    This is a very crude decision.
    Why not just make a special “unsafe” option to access resources in countries with stupid laws?
    I am sure that many people use VPNs to quickly view / download and / or increase the response time and they do not care about the recorded data on certain types of resources (educational, gaming, etc.) ..

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