The lawyer urged the Russians not to be afraid of a fine of 700 thousand for sending financial information

Foreign and harmful RKN recognized 9 messengers

On the evening of Tuesday, June 20, the Russians were excited by the information that the State Duma adopted in the third reading a law on fines of up to 700 thousand rubles. for sending personal and financial information via foreign messengers. People were alarmed: it means that now it is impossible to send a copy of the passport or card data to family members? However, if you read the law carefully, you can calm down – we are talking about restrictions only for officials and legal entities.

We are talking about the federal law “On Amendments to the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses”, according to which it is prohibited to use foreign messengers to transfer personal data and financial information in some cases, as well as to connect information systems to such messengers for money transfers.

“The draft law proposes to supplement the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses (hereinafter referred to as the Code) with Article 13.11.2, establishing liability for illegal use in cases provided for by the legislation on information, information technologies and on the protection of information belonging to foreign legal entities and (or) foreign citizens information systems and (or) programs for electronic computers that are intended and (or) used for the exchange of electronic messages exclusively between users of these information systems and (or) programs for electronic computers, in which the sender of the electronic message determines the recipient or recipients of the electronic message and it is not envisaged that Internet users place public information on the Internet, or connect other information systems to the specified information systems and (or) programs for electronic computers in cases provided for by the legislation on information, information technologies and information protection ” , — stated in the explanatory note to the bill.

The initiative is based on the rules introduced by Roskomnadzor on March 1, 2023. Then Roskomnadzor recognized nine resources as unwanted foreign messengers: Discord, Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business, Snapchat, Telegram, Threema, Viber, WhatsApp (owned by the Meta corporation, recognized as extremist and banned in Russia), WeChat.

The above prohibition applies to state-owned companies, state and municipal unitary enterprises, public companies, business entities, in the authorized capital of which the share of participation of the Russian Federation, a constituent entity of the Russian Federation, a municipality in the aggregate exceeds 50%, credit organizations, non-credit financial organizations.

Liability is provided in the form of a fine. For officials – from 30 to 50 thousand rubles, for legal entities – from 100 to 700 thousand.

As lawyer Lyubov Shuryga said in an interview with an MK correspondent, the panic of Russians after such news is quite understandable, but you should always carefully read the essence of the changes: – In fact, everything happened on March 1, 2023. Now these changes have only been fixed in the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, this is a formal moment. Of course, unscrupulous media present the news as if ordinary citizens could receive a huge fine for sending their bank card details via messenger. This is wrong. We are talking only about official cases, for example, a ban for banks to work through these messengers.