Russia proposes fines for violations of the sovereign Runet law

The Russian State Duma introduced a bill proposing fines for telecommunications operators that did not install equipment to filter traffic as part of the so‑called sovereign Runet law.

The authors of the document — deputies Alexander Khinshtein and Sergey Boyarsky — propose enshrining in the Code of Administrative Offenses (CAO) liability for violations of the procedures for installing, operating and upgrading “technical means to counter threats to the stability, security and integrity of the Runet’s functioning”.

Fines for officials will range from 15,000 to 30,000 rubles; for individual entrepreneurs (IE) — from 30,000 to 50,000 rubles; for legal entities — from 300,000 to 500,000 rubles.

Repeat violations within a year carry fines:

• for officials — 30,000 to 50,000 rubles;
• for individual entrepreneurs — 60,000 to 100,000 rubles;
• for legal entities — 600,000 to 1,000,000 rubles.

The document provides for administrative liability for non‑compliance with requirements to restrict access to information. The maximum amount of penalties for legal entities under this provision is 500,000 rubles.

Owners of traffic exchange points who failed to notify authorities of their operations will be fined up to 300,000 rubles. For non‑compliance with the requirement to use traffic exchange points from the special registry, penalties of up to 700,000 rubles are provided.

As reported earlier, the law on the sovereign Runet came into force on 1 November 2019.

The provisions of the law envisage the creation of a national system for routing Internet traffic, effectively closing it within the country. To implement the law, Internet service providers, at state expense, must install equipment in their networks with deep packet inspection (DPI).

According to several operators, Runet isolation will slow Internet speeds by a factor of 625.

Exercises to ensure the resilience and security of Internet operation under the law отменились already three times.

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