Roskomnadzor unblocked Telegram

Telegram has been removed from the Unified Register of Banned Sites.

On June 18, 2020, Roskomnadzor announced that the department "in agreement with the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation removes the requirements to restrict access to the Telegram messenger." Later on the same day, the telegram.com domain address was removed from the Unified Register of Banned Sites (the full name is the Unified Register of Domain Names, Site Page Pointers on the Internet and Network Addresses that Allow to Identify Internet Sites Containing Information, distribution of which is prohibited in the Russian Federation). Roskomnadzor stated that it "positively assesses the willingness expressed by the founder of Telegrams to counter terrorism and extremism."

The Telegram messenger faced blocking in Russia in 2018 based on the decision of the Tagansky District Court of Moscow, which satisfied the corresponding claim of Roskomnadzor. The restriction on access to Telegram was imposed prior to the fulfillment by the owners of the service of the requirement to transfer the encryption keys of users' correspondence to the FSB. The provision on the obligation of the messenger to provide the FSB with encryption keys was introduced into law in 2016 as part of the Yarovaya package. Telegram stated that this requirement is unconstitutional, not based on the law, and also technically unenforceable if end-to-end encryption is used in the messenger (when encryption keys are stored only with users and deleted after communication ends).

On June 18, the press service of the Tagansky District Court noted that the decision to block the messenger is still in force. However, according to the press service of the Moscow City Court, Roskomnadzor may not enforce the decision of the Tagansky District Court, since the department was "the plaintiff and executor" in the case.

Let us recall that on June 15, deputies Fedot Tumusov, Dmitry Ionin and Alexander Terentyev submitted to the State Duma a draft law on amendments to the law "On Information". It was proposed to amend Art. 2 and 15.4 of the law, namely, to prescribe in the law the concepts of "service" ("data transmission system") and "official service" ("service used by state bodies and their officials to disseminate information in order to exercise their powers"), and also prohibit telecom operators from blocking "official services". According to the explanatory note, "the bill is aimed at prohibiting the blocking of information resources and at unblocking already blocked information resources (for example, the Telegram messenger), which, when a high alert or emergency situation is introduced, inform about it, and are also the main sources of obtaining information about the current situation for public authorities and officials.

Sources

• About Telegram messenger // Official site of the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Communications. 2020. June 18.
• Roskomnadzor promised to remove the blocking from Telegram // Mediazone. 2020. June 18.
• The court decision to block Telegram will remain in force for the time being // TASS. 2020. June 18.
• Roskomnadzor removed the Telegram messenger from the list of blocked resources // City News Agency "Moscow". 2020. June 18.
• The Moscow City Court announced the right of Roskomnadzor to independently unblock Telegram // Interfax. 2020. June 18.