Russian police buy software for large-scale surveillance of users of social networks

Today it was reported that the State Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Sverdlovsk Region announced the purchase of a software and analytical module for the already existing information system "Zeus". This software is used by the Sverdlovsk police. The competition should take place on August 8, the initial cost of the annual license is 1.85 million rubles.



Police posted a detailed technical task . It states that the new module should allow permanent monitoring of any user of social resources. The module should be able to track the addition of friends by this person, show notifications about the appearance of new posts, new user groups, photos, videos, and social circle.



The module for the Zeus system, if desired, the operator should be able to create a social diagram of the user's environment, with the establishment of links between specific people. The TOR states that the module requires the ability to analyze friends, relatives, acquaintances, general groups of a specific user.

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In addition, the ability to search for images posted on social networks should be added. Search and ranking of photos should be carried out by time and keywords. The module will also display the location where the photo was taken.











Interestingly, some of the module’s functions specified in the TOR work with open information from social networks. But there are features that can be used only if you have access to classified information, including user correspondence. In a general manner, it is impossible to do this; in order to fulfill this requirement, the social network must itself give access to all closed data. So far it is not clear whether the police have such an agreement with domestic and / or foreign resources.



Journalists from Znak.com have contacted a number of experts who are familiar with Zeus software. According to sources of the resource, the software module was successfully tested in seven different regions of Russia, where the police began to work with it. This module operates in the Novosibirsk, Samara and Tyumen regions, the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, in Altai and in the Lipetsk region. With the help of this software, it was already possible to identify a number of participants of informal public organizations recognized as extremist, who “allegedly carried out protest actions”. In Lipetsk, it was possible to identify a number of pimps or their assistants who posted announcements about high-paying jobs for girls.



Of all the regions mentioned in the material, only the Sverdlovsk region published auction documentation.



Valery Gorelykh, a spokesman for the State Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Sverdlovsk region, has already confirmed the fact of purchasing software for monitoring social resources. He argues that such software is required by the police "for the fulfillment of the tasks entrusted to them by law, including in the sphere of countering terrorism and extremism."



According to Gorelykh, citizens who follow the letter of the law have no reason to worry about the safety of their correspondence in social networks. You can worry if there is something illegal in the correspondence. Working with software for monitoring social networks, according to a spokesman for the State Ministry of Internal Affairs, will be carried out only after receiving the decision of the court. “Work in this direction is necessary both for the security of the state as a whole and for the residents of the Sverdlovsk region,” Gorelykh said.



VKontakte press secretary Yevgeny Krasnikov believes that the software that the police are purchasing is most likely intended to monitor the social activity of social network users. That is, we are talking about collecting only publicly available information. “VKontakte” strictly adheres to current legislation and fully respects the constitutional rights of citizens, ”said the spokesman for the social network.



Internet ombudsman Dmitry Marinichev said that the purchase of the State Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Sverdlovsk region is “normal.” Unfortunately, Marinichev did not say anything about the stated possibility of “Zeus” to read the personal correspondence of citizens.

“It's like buying a car to patrol the area. Do not forget that the monitoring will be carried out in "public" places. Everything that people write, photograph and so on, they make it public. Look at it that way. Face recognition technology has evolved very powerfully in recent years. Monitoring and automatic recognition may stumble upon photos you took at the resort. And in the background, the robot recognizes a criminal who has disappeared from a crime scene. Based on this assumption, the perpetrator will be tested and detained, which may be a threat to your life and your health, ”he said.

The most interesting thing is that the State Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Sverdlovsk Region tried to buy the same module in November 2015, when the “Spring Law” was not yet adopted. One of the sources of the resource Znak stated that „Zeus“ in its work uses the closed interface of Russian social networks. Allegedly, “this social network has been sharing this interface with security officials for a long time”. The same source claims that employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB gained access to personal data for Russian users “long before the adoption of the law of Spring”.