Russian President Vladimir Putin gives assent to Big Brother law
Russian President Vladimir Putin has given his assent to the legislation consisting of a package of controversial anti-terror amendments.
The legislation is dubbed as Big Brother law was adopted by the lower and upper houses of Russian parliament in June 2016.
The nick-name Big Brother law was coined by Edward Snowden, US intelligence contractor turned privacy activist. He has condemned the law despite being given asylum in Russia.
Key provisions of law
- Boosts the surveillance powers for the security services and grants them access to any user’s messages without any judicial oversight.
- Mandatory for communication (network) service providers to store users’ calls, messages, photographs and videos for six months and the metadata for up to three years.
- Federal Security Service (FSB) should be provided with the stored data. Companies and service providers must provide it necessary encryption mechanisms to access files.
- Tougher sentences for extremism and criminalises several offences. For certain crimes the age of criminal responsibility reduced to 14.
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Month: Current Affairs - July, 2016