Roskomnadzor want to give access to information about the relatives of the media owners

The Ministry of Communications offers from January 1, 2018 to open access to the Unified Register of Civil Status to Roskomnadzor to receive information about the relatives of the media owners. This was reported by RBC with reference to the draft amendments to the law "On Acts of Civil status" prepared by the Ministry.

In the explanatory note to the document, the Ministry of Communications recalls that from January last year, foreign citizens are forbidden to control the founder of any Russian media, not only directly, but also indirectly. Meanwhile, Article 105.1 of the Tax Code establishes that "a formal criterion for control and management can be related relationships."

The deputy head of the ministry, Alexei Volin, in the commentary of RBC, admitted that the presence of the owner of the mass media with foreign relatives with foreign citizenship is not a 100 percent evidence of indirect media control by foreigners. However, he added, it is impossible and completely eliminated the possibility of control, and therefore each case should be considered separately.

The law mentioned by the department in the explanatory note was adopted in the fall of 2014 . He deprived foreigners, stateless persons, as well as Russians who at the same time having citizenship of another country, the right to act by media founders. The permissible share of foreign capital in Russian mass media reduced the same law from 50 to 20 percent.