Apple and Microsoft may lose certain services in Russia ⠀.
On October 2, Roskomandzor included Apple and Microsoft in the register of information dissemination organizers - companies through which people correspond and communicate with each other. In the past, this notebook mainly consisted of instant messages and social networks, such as VK and Telegram. Now, for the first time, equipment and software manufacturers are included in it.
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Companies included in the register are required to store in Russia data about who, when and with whom they communicated for three years, and the correspondence, conversations and videos themselves for six months. At the request of the intelligence services, this data must be transferred. In addition, companies must provide the FSB with keys to decrypt messages. For Apple it is even theoretically impossible: iMessage correspondence is encrypted in such a way that even the company itself, it claims, cannot read it. That is, most likely the companies will not fulfill the conditions. Refusal will result in fines and in extreme cases blocking of communication services. For Apple, it's mainly iMessage: FaceTime is blocked as early as December 2025. For Microsoft, this could be, for example, Teams and Outlook mail.
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Many people were worried about their iPhones and Windows computers. There is no reason for this yet. The current RKN measures do not affect them. To limit their work, a separate procedure is needed. RKN cannot turn off the phone or computer. But in theory, access to the company's servers may be closed in the future, and then the App Store, iCloud and updates will stop working on the iPhone, and updates and activation in Windows will stop working.
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"Oleg Tserev".