Russian Human Rights Council Requests Roskomnadzor Not to Block Telegram

Members of the Human Rights Council (HRC) under the President of Russia have sent a request to Roskomnadzor, urging the agency not to block Telegram within the country. This was reported in the blog of Alexander Verkhovsky, director of the SOVA Information and Analytical Center and a member of the HRC.

According to the HRC statement, “Members of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights call on Roskomnadzor to refrain from blocking the Telegram messenger, and urge the FSB of Russia to find other lawful ways to access the correspondence of individual users who pose a threat to national security, without allowing unlimited and arbitrary access to the correspondence of all users of this and other messengers.”

The statement also notes that modern encryption methods, used not only in Telegram but in all major messengers, mean that companies themselves cannot decrypt messages, as the keys are generated on users’ devices and then deleted.

On March 20, the Supreme Court ruled that the FSB’s demands to hand over encryption keys for users’ correspondence in the messenger were legal. Immediately after the court session, Roskomnadzor sent Telegram a demand to provide the encryption keys within 15 days; otherwise, the agency would have the right to block the service in Russia.

After April 5, Roskomnadzor has the authority to block Telegram in Russia. On April 2, representatives of the messenger once again informed the agency that it is technically impossible to provide the FSB with the encryption keys for message decryption.