RKN proposed to prohibit access to information about bypassing blocking from March 1

Roskomnadzor has developed a draft order on the criteria for banning the distribution on the Internet of materials with information about bypassing blocking. The department proposes to begin applying the criteria on March 1, 2024. Project published on the official Internet portal of draft regulatory legal acts.

The criteria, according to Roskomnadzor, should be in effect from March 1, 2024 to September 1, 2029. The project proposes to amend the current department order No. 25 of February 27, 2022, which lists the criteria for entering materials on the Internet into the Unified Register of Prohibited Information and their removal.

Among the criteria for limiting access to materials about bypassing blocking, Roskomnadzor, in particular, mentions the presence of information describing actions that allow access to resources blocked in the Russian Federation, as well as encouraging such actions. The criteria also include, for example, the availability of information that provides the ability to gain access, including by “downloading computer programs,” to resources or networks blocked in the Russian Federation.

At the same time, the draft states that these criteria should not be applied to scientific, technical and statistical information on ways to gain access to information blocked in the Russian Federation.

On July 31, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law according to which information on ways to bypass blocking of information resources will become the basis for including such a site in the Unified Register of Prohibited Information. September 3 Ministry of Digital Development prepared a draft resolution according to which Roskomnadzor will have the right to block sites with information on ways to bypass blocking.

Read more about the risks of prohibiting information about bypassing blocking in Yuri Litvinenko’s column “The printer jammed the instructions”.

Erdni Kagaltynov