Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the law on the isolation of Runet from November 1, 2019

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a bill on the sovereign RuNet. May 1 document was published on the website of legal information.

The law will come into force on November 1, 2019, a number of its provisions – from 2021.

The law will oblige Internet providers to install technical equipment provided by Roskomnadzor, which, if the Russian segment of the World Wide Web is isolated, will allow the agency to exercise centralized network management. The rest of the time, the equipment will be used to block prohibited resources.

The law also implies the mandatory use of the Russian cryptographic system for state information systems and the creation of a center for monitoring and managing a public telecommunications network.

The bill was submitted to the State Duma on December 14, 2018. On April 16, 2019, the bill was passed in the third, final reading. On April 22, the law was approved by the Federation Council .

In late April, international human rights organizations and journalists called on President Putin not to sign the law on "ensuring the safe and sustainable functioning of the Internet in Russia." In a joint declaration published by Reporters Without Borders and Human Rights Watch, activists said the bill violated the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

According to human rights activists, the main threat to the law on the isolation of the Runet is the lack of clear criteria in the bill in which cases it will be possible to isolate the Russian Internet from the global network, because of which the Russian authorities will be able to apply the law at their discretion.

Commenting on the law on sovereign RuNet, Russian politician and public figure Leonid Volkov, not being embarrassed in expressions, said:

“Everyone who understands the technological side of the issue also understands that if this task is really solved, then billions of dollars must be mortgaged and at least 3-5 years old. But this is already too long, no one thinks of such a prospect now. Therefore, a hysterical and unworkable law is being adopted, under which technically they will not be able to do anything, but 30 billion rubles must be mastered by November 1, 2019. It is for the sake of the rapid development of 30 billion dollars that it is accepted, nothing more. ”

The well-known political commentator El-Murid (A. Nesmiyan) agrees with Volkov:

“Putin signed the law on“ sustainable Runet. Simply put, it provided legitimate reasons for turning off the Internet in places of unrest and protests under the guise of ensuring security from hostile intrusion from outside. In general, without such a law, it is quite possible to overlap the channels of information without prior arrangement, as is happening right now in Ingushetia, where unrest continues not for the first month, but double censorship is introduced against them: the official media simply do not report what is happening, and the local operators significantly limit communication with the outside world.

From a practical point of view, in this law, naturally, the resources allocated for its implementation are important. The political component here is adding to the more important – the distribution of new billions in the right pockets. Most likely, in the end, the costs of this meaningless event will be charged to consumers by raising tariffs. ”

Publication date 05/02/2019
Share this material on social networks and leave your opinion in the comments below.