The court decided to block Telegram in Russia

The Tagansky District Court of Moscow ordered Roskomnadzor to immediately begin blocking the Telegram messenger.

On April 13, 2018, the Tagansky District Court of Moscow satisfied the claim of Roskomnadzor to block the Telegram messenger.

The court ruled to establish a restriction on access to Telegram in Russia until it fulfills the requirement to transfer encryption keys to the correspondence of FSB users. Roskomnadzor, according to the court decision, is obliged to stop creating technical conditions for receiving, delivering, writing messages in the messenger. The decision is subject to immediate execution, the court ruled, but can be appealed within a month to the Moscow City Court.

The requirement to transfer encryption keys was introduced into the law "On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection", the so-called. Yarovaya package in 2016. Telegram stated that the FSB's demands to provide access to users' private correspondence are unconstitutional, not based on the law, technically and legally unenforceable and, therefore, the blocking requirement is also unreasonable. In October 2017, the messenger was fined 800,000 rubles for failure to comply with the requirements of the FSB, it was not possible to appeal against this decision, just as an attempt by Telegram representatives through the court to cancel the order on the procedure for handing over the keys was unsuccessful.

Note that the modern system of end-to-end encryption is designed in such a way that the administration of instant messengers cannot transfer keys to anyone, since they themselves do not have them: they are generated by users' devices for the period of their communication with each other, and then automatically deleted.

Earlier, the Presidential Human Rights Council issued a statement regarding the possible blocking of Telegram, urging the authorities to abandon extreme measures and enter into a constructive dialogue with the owners of instant messengers aimed at finding a balance between national security interests and the right to privacy.

Sources

• Telegram blocked in Russia // Mediazone. April 13, 2018