Big brother watching you: how anti-terrorism actions would touch every Russian citizen

The Yarovaya package came into force on July 1, 2018. The Government  has signed  data storage requirements and therefore forced all mobile operators  and Internet-providers  start to  develop the special programmes designed for information storage and, just as important, for  equipment reconfiguration. Apart  from violations  of constitutional rights of the Russian Federation  citizens, all these measures  can significantly affect  on telecom service prices.

From July 1 the Russian  telecoms providers are obliged to store content of  the  telephone calls of all  users within  six months. This measure aims to provide the Ministry  of Internal Affairs and the Federal Security Service  quickly access  to such data. It does mean that the telephone calls  will be  recorded  on the Russian Federation territory and then  information  will come to the big database containing  hundreds  of petabytes  (more  than  one terabyte) of data. After October 1, 2018 the   operators and the   Internet-providers will have to store data, including encrypted,  about Internet-traffic of all  their users for 30 days. The so-called Yarovaya  law obliges to collect videos, sounds, images,  voice messages and other data up to copies of visited websites. The  most  well-known  messengers  and  social media are covered by the requirements.  From now  many experts  recommend  be  more  accuracy and watching out for information to be  passed even if it  contains said in jest information  running against laws or morals. Also they advise do not use the  services  for passing private  information.

“By the  fact  it's a question of deforcing the Russians of  the  rights to  privacy of  family, home and correspondence.  According to  the RF Criminal Code, one  of  the forms of  the  privacy  violation is to collect and store these data, even  afterwards  it wouldn't  be disclosed. The similar  position became the basis for the Federal Law  on Personal Data. It  prohibits any unauthorized  data processing which includes gathering, systematization, accumulation, storage and so on. In fact, the Government  position  that new requirements don't encroach  on constitutional rights  of our  citizens, are in contrast to reality,”  the Candidate  of  Science (Law), Alexander Shigurov believes.

Furthermore, the Yarovaya  package  is able to affect  on the price for  telephone calls and Internet services which don't bode well for seafarers. If many seafarers used the roaming service of mobile networks and Internet  at sea,  now the price  of these services  and the  mobile communications in whole would probably rise. The shipping companies could feel the changes. Even now  there are not so many shipowners  providing their crews to  Internet access. For example, the monthly  cost  of ShipSat system, which integrates some satellite technologies, is $1300. Only a few companies are ready to pay this sum. When the providers  rise their service cost, the shipowners already using the same technologies on their ships will be able to restrict the bandwidth or time of Internet access and subsequently affect on mental well-being of seafarers.