en.Wedoany.com Reported - New regulations issued by Russia's Ministry of Digital Development in late May updated the technical standards for the "System for Operative Investigative Activities" (SORM). The country's decades-old digital surveillance platform, SORM, is being pushed toward faster and more automated development, with tighter integration with the national internet infrastructure.
The SORM platform grants Russian security and intelligence agencies access to domestic internet phone calls, internet traffic, and other electronic communications. Timofei Dubrovskikh, a researcher at the digital rights non-profit RKS Global, stated that previous rules required operators to install SORM equipment and provide access when needed, while the new regulations further specify the methods for information search, processing, and transmission.
Under the new rules, the scope of data searchable by the system has been expanded to include full names, passport information, taxpayer identification numbers, addresses, usernames, domain names, URLs, company records, device identifiers, and geographic coordinates. Dubrovskikh believes the system's primary value lies not in intercepting communication content, but in building comprehensive digital profiles that link phone numbers, SIM cards, devices, IP addresses, user accounts, and locations into a searchable network.
Russia's Ministry of Digital Development stated that the new rules are necessary to support national security. Natalia Krapiva, Senior Tech Legal Counsel at the digital rights organization Access Now, noted that the new requirements aim to reinforce the notion that online activities are constantly monitored. She pointed out that more targeted digital surveillance allows authorities to identify dissent while keeping services online, encouraging self-censorship rather than directly disrupting networks.
Compliance with SORM requirements necessitates providers to deploy specialized hardware, storage systems, and dedicated communication infrastructure, an investment that could cost millions of rubles, hitting smaller internet providers particularly hard. Krapiva believes this could accelerate consolidation among large operators with close government ties, reducing competition. Violations not only face financial penalties but may also lead to licensing issues, regulatory scrutiny, and other administrative sanctions.
The scope of the new regulations extends beyond traditional telecom companies to cover all "organizers of information dissemination" and autonomous system operators, including hosting providers, data centers, cloud operators, large tech companies, banks, universities, and large enterprises managing their own internet infrastructure. Dubrovskikh noted that traditionally, SORM was associated with telephone networks and internet service providers, but the modern internet has become more complex, and security agencies tend to link a set of technical identifiers.
For ordinary users, SORM operates within the telecommunications infrastructure and is difficult to disable through software settings. Virtual private networks (VPNs) may hide some browsing activities from internet providers, but metadata and network relationships remain visible to authorities. By connecting fragmented data into a searchable network, SORM is evolving into a system capable of mapping how people connect, move, and interact.
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