Officials: a bill passed by the State Duma to ban anonymity in messengers protects the interests of citizens and business

Photo: Anton Vergun / TASS

As expected, the draft law on regulating the work of instant messengers, submitted for consideration by State Duma deputies, passed the first reading. The document was supported by 356 deputies, two opposed, and one abstained. The draft law, which provides for amendments to the law "On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection", obliges the organizers of instant messaging to allow the transfer of messages only to users identified in accordance with the law. To this end, it is proposed to assign identification numbers to subscribers on the basis of contracts that instant messengers will enter into with telecom operators after the bill enters into force.

Officials believe that the adoption of the bill will protect the interests of both citizens and businesses. “Since today the volume of transmitted information via instant messengers has already exceeded the amount of information transmitted by traditional telecom operators, and also due to the fact that the owners have not proposed any measures to regulate their activities on their own, it was decided to support this bill,” the head of Information Policy Committee Leonid Levin.

According to one of the authors of the draft law, deputy Marina Mukabenova, the amendments to the existing legislation made by the document will become a reliable mechanism for protecting against the dissemination of illegal information. “This includes extremist content, and advertising of narcotic drugs, information that threatens the health of children, and even child pornography. All this only underlines the need to legally provide for the possibility of suppressing illegal information, ”explained Mukabenova.
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The bill, among other innovations, provides an opportunity for the user to refuse to receive messages from other users, and also allows state authorities to send electronic messages to the subscribers of instant messengers in the event of such a need.

It is worth noting that amendments to the legislation on communication also introduce a ban on anonymous SIM cards. “In this case, we can talk about measures to prevent the use of telephone communications using anonymous SIM cards for the purpose of committing terrorist acts and other unlawful acts,” said Victor Kalinin, vice-rector of the Russian State Social University for Social Innovations.

Igor Ashmanov, the head of Ashmanov and Partners, supported the relevant changes. In his opinion, the ban on anonymous cards will allow to get rid of the problem of luring money over the phone, when attackers under the guise of relatives of a person who is calling, ask for money under this or that pretext.

The bill introduces a new concept of "identification module". This is an electronic storage medium that is installed in the user equipment. With its help it is planned to identify subscribers.

The law should come into force on January 1, 2018.