Russia has always been a country with some interesting thoughts and opinions on matters. More so also within the digital environment. It seems there is an ongoing quest to establish digital sovereignty within the country. The main goal behind this move is two-fold – information control as well as technological independence. The ongoing conflict with the West as well as a similar crisis of legitimacy at home seems to drive this movement. But the consequences of this could prove to be fatal not only for the digital economy, but also for innovation as a whole.
Working to regulate the current status quo
Russia’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor said on Wednesday it had blocked the internet performance tool Speedtest, run by U.S. company Ookla, due to what it described as threats to Russia’s internet security. The Roskomnadzor (RKN) is the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology as well as Mass Media. This agency monitors, controls and censors mass media within Russia.
Foreign tech companies, including the likes of Alphabetย GOOGL.O, Metaย META.Oย and Appleย AAPL.O, have been under pressure in Russia for several years over the content they distribute and where they store their data. Alphabet Inc is an American multinational technology conglomerate holding company. It is the world’s 3rd largest technology company, calculated by revenue. Considering profit, they form the largest and they are also one of the world’s most valuable companies.
Bringing restrictions onto the Speedtest
Roskomnadzor said access to Speedtest had been restricted in accordance with a 2020 decree “due to identified threats to the security of public communications network operation and the Russian segment of the internet”. Ookla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Roskomnadzor recommends using trusted Russian services,”
Roskomnadzor said, naming an application developed in Russia called ProSet, or ProNet in English, that performs similar online speed and signal strength tests.
Russia has long sought to establish what it calls digital sovereignty by promoting home-grown services, a push that became more urgent as some Western companies pulled out of the Russian market following Moscow’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Moscow has blocked social networks like Meta’s Instagram and Facebook, sought to slow down the speed of YouTube and has toldย messaging app WhatsAppย to prepare to leave the Russian market, with a new state-controlled messaging app, MAX, preparing to fill the gap.
Understanding potential cyber threats of a different level
In a report published on Wednesday, Human Rights Watch said Russia’s government was increasing its technological capacities and control over the country’s internet infrastructure, allowing for more widespread blocking and throttling of unwanted websites and censorship circumvention tools. “For years, Russian authorities have been meticulously expanding their legal and technological tools to carve out Russia’s section of the internet into a tightly controlled and isolated forum,” said Anastasiia Kruope, assistant Europe and Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Lawmakers have approved a new law that tightens censorship and could have sweeping ramifications for digital privacy, with Russians facing fines if they search online for content Moscow considers “extremist”. Human Rights Watch noted that Russians face higher risks of having their personal data passed on to law enforcement. Russia’s digital development ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Human Rights Watch report.
All of these changes will have some interesting consequences. It will definitely have an effect on digital privacy within Russia. In this sense, it is a good idea to get better clarity on what this means to understand the ramifications thereof. Digital privacy in itself is an important aspect of modern online interactions as well as services. It is defined under three sub-related categories, namely communication privacy, information privacy as well as individual privacy.
GCN.com/Reuters.