The head of the Ministry of Digital Development Shadayev spoke critically about the ban on foreign remote work for IT people

In his report, Mr. Shadayev recalled that digital transformation was defined as one of the five main development goals until 2030 by presidential decree, and reported on key indicators. By 2030, 97 households in Russia should be able to access high-speed Internet – in 2021, 86% of all households already had such happiness.

By 2030, the demand for Russian IT products and IT solutions should increase fourfold, and the key sectors of the Russian economy should meet the best world practices in terms of their digital maturity. Three operators have already signed contracts for the production of Russian 4G and 5G base stations, and another one will sign a similar one before the end of the year, he reported. The total value of the contracts is about 100 billion rubles.

And with the transfer of public services to digital format, “despite the difficult international situation,” everything seems to be going well: according to the World Bank, Russia has entered the top ten countries in the world in terms of digitalization of state processes and services. The daily audience of the Gosuslugi portal is more than 10 million people, which is four times more than four years ago. Russia still remains “one of the few countries in the world that has its own developed ecosystem of digital services and platforms: it includes a browser, search, and social networks,” Mr. Shadayev said.

Over the past three years, the volume of use of its own Internet solutions has more than doubled, the share of Russian hardware manufacturers (computers, servers, data storage systems) has grown from 6% to 43%, the head of the Ministry of Digital Development continued.

“The central issue” he called the issue of information security: “We have come under very serious cyber attacks from Ukraine, our infrastructure is constantly being tested for strength.” The FSB has been given additional powers to analyze the leaks and hacks that have taken place. The “mechanism for checking the degree of security through the involvement of specialized organizations, the so-called. “white hat hackers” who on a regular basis have to look for holes in the security system.

The ministry proposes to fight personal data leaks with a whip. Businesses should be encouraged to invest in protection systems with turnover fines, which will decrease if the damage caused by the leak is voluntarily compensated for all affected users and there is sufficient investment in protection tools.

“Internal violators” who steal data where they work are promised criminal liability up to 10 years in prison. The ministry has been promising these bills for a long time. The Duma Committee on Information Policy hopes that they will be submitted to the State Duma in January, Alexander Khinshtein (ER) said later in his speech.

He called the Ministry of Digital Development “one of the most efficient and active ministries, the driver of many processes”, but highlighted several issues that cause deputies “concern”: the ongoing growth of personal data leaks, low responsibility for the leak (“current fines of a maximum of 100 thousand look ridiculous and even mocking”), the growth of IT-crime … “It is remarkable that in three years the share of Russian personal computers has tripled, but still only 11% of computers today are domestic,” Mr. Khinshtein noted.

Oleg Smolin (KPRF) said that the Ministry of Education and Science, in response to his question about the situation with IT specialists in universities and computer science teachers in schools and colleges, replied that “the problem of brain drain is especially acute.” One of the reasons for this is the absence of a delay from mobilization for such specialists, unlike IT people working in companies. Mr. Shadayev admitted that there was a problem, but he could not say anything consoling: “The issue has been raised many times, but has not yet been resolved.”

Andrey Svintsov (LDPR) recalled that, according to the minister, about 100,000 IT specialists left the country after the start of a military special operation in Ukraine, 85% of them still work for Russian companies, and asked what targeted measures the Ministry of Digital Development proposes, to bring these professionals back.

Mr. Shadayev expressed his opinion on this, reiterating that “the key measure is not to impose severe restrictions on remote work for such employees, because this really pushes them to work in foreign companies and reduces the likelihood of returning.”

If we take two waves of departure, he said (after the start of the special operation and after the start of partial mobilization), up to 10% of employees of IT companies left the country and did not return. Now about 100 thousand are really outside the country, the lion’s share of them continue to work remotely in Russian companies from the territory of “friendly countries”, he emphasized (apparently, Armenia, Georgia and Kazakhstan).

Of course, the minister noted, there are categories of workers who are unlikely to be shown remote work – for example, system administrators, but in such cases, the department asks companies to assess the risks on their own and take measures. And for those who participate in the development of state information systems, a ban on remote work should be prescribed in contracts.

“Everyone will come back, don’t worry, we need to train our own personnel who will not exchange their homeland for any price. And those who left – many did not know what they would face in a foreign land, ”said Speaker Volodin.

Maxim Gulin (“New People”) remembered Wikipedia: according to him, schools and universities sometimes now prohibit the use of materials from this popular Internet resource when preparing reports and speeches. “Do you agree that Wikipedia should not be blocked because of individual articles and it is better to do prevention?” the deputy asked.

Mr. Shadayev reminded that there were “several cases of placing unreliably public significant information on Wikipedia, there were fines, and due to the systematic disregard of the requirements of Roskomnadzor, Wikipedia is marked in search results as a resource that violates the requirements of Russian legislation.” Instead of Wikipedia, which is “still available”, the Ministry of Digital Development will offer the domestic online encyclopedia “Knowledge”, for which more than 100,000 articles have already been written: “We recommend referring to it, it contains verified verified information.” The Ministry of Digital Development will “request that this portal be a priority in the search results and come before Wikipedia,” Mr. Shadayev said.

Representatives of 19 non-parliamentary parties took part in the right hour – once a year, according to the law, they must be called to a plenary session, and some should be allowed to speak.

Ilya Kleymenov (the Communists of Russia party) asked if the Ministry of Digital Transformation would support the creation of “patriotic hacking courses to counteract attacks on our information resources from unfriendly states.” Mr. Shadayev replied that “it is hardly possible to learn hacking from scratch by reading a few books”, and assured that there are already “a fairly large number of mature IT specialists” in the country on this matter.

And the chairman of the Yabloko party, Nikolai Rybakov, said that “the development of digital technologies is possible only within the framework of mutually beneficial cooperation with other countries of the world, so that people can realize themselves in their country without leaving anywhere,” but the restoration of these ties “is possible only within the framework of achieving peace and ceasefire agreements…”

“We were not afraid of competition, and before the start of a special military operation, the share of Russian products was growing,” but now, indeed, “foreign companies have left, having lost 650-700 billion rubles in revenue,” the minister replied. “We didn’t kick them out, competition is the key to successful development,” and now, he continued, “we will still develop our technologies and will cooperate and cooperate with other countries – from Latin America and Asia, from the Middle East.”