Roskomnadzor will be able to conduct surprise checks of Internet companies

The new draft administrative regulation on the execution by Roskomnadzor of the function of monitoring the activities of the organizers of disseminating information on the Internet gives this body additional powers. So, Roskomnadzor gets the opportunity to conduct sudden checks of Internet companies that are registered as organizers of the dissemination of information, writes Izvestia. These are mail services, social networks, instant messengers. The Office will be able to verify the fact that such companies store information on the reception, transmission, and delivery of both voice data and plain text, audio recordings, images. In addition, Roskomnadzor can study the list of registered users of the service.

The agency must warn the company about the planned inspection within 24 hours. However, if the designated authority deems it necessary, the inspection can be carried out without warning.

It is worth recalling that on August 1, amendments to the laws On Information, Information Technologies and Protection of Information, On Communications and to the Code of Administrative Offenses entered into force. According to these laws, bloggers, whose resources are visited by 3,000 or more people per day, are obliged to comply with the same restrictions that are designed for the media. In addition, the law provides requirements for those sites and systems that provide reception, transmission, delivery and processing of electronic messages of web users.
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As soon as such a site or service is registered in Roskomnadzor as an organizer of information dissemination, it is obliged to store, within six months, “on the territory of the Russian Federation, information on the facts of reception, transmission, delivery and (or) processing of voice information, written text, images, sounds or other electronic messages of Internet users. For non-compliance with this rule a penalty is provided (for legal entities - up to 500 thousand rubles).

In order to be considered the organizer of the dissemination of information, a private person does not have to be a citizen of Russia, and a company does not need to have a legal entity in Russia.

The Deputy Head of Roskomnadzor, Maxim Ksenzov, has already stated that the main Russian information resources have already been registered. Thus, the corresponding procedure for adding to a special registry was held by VKontakte, Yandex services, Mail.ru Group. In addition, Roskomnadzor sent notifications on the need to register as an organizer of information dissemination on Facebook, Gmai, Twitter.

Information about the facts of the exchange of messages, according to the new rules, should be stored on servers in Russia. And Roskomnadzor should have access to this information - if necessary, the telecommunications company should provide access to the department’s employees both to the territory and to the office premises. The inspection cannot last more than 30 days, but if necessary, Roskomnadzor can extend it by 20 days. If in the process of checking the property of the company suffered damage, then such a company has the right to compensation for damage. The audited companies may also appeal against the actions of Roskomnadzor employees in court.

According to the lawyer of the Russian Association of Electronic Communications Maxim Buyanov, the document mentions only two grounds for verification: “This is the appeal [to Roskomnadzor] of the bodies that carry out operational investigative activities or the security of the Russian Federation, or the expiration of the deadline for executing the order to eliminate the detected violation.