Bulletin the Tomsk institute of advanced training of employees the FPS of Russia No. 1 (7) / 2021

АBOUT RESTRICTION OF USE OF MESSENGERS OF FOREIGN DEVELOPERS BY CIVIL SERVANTS FOR OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE

Kovalev S.D.

Vladimir law Institute of the FPS of Russia (Vladimir, Russia), associate Professor of the Department of organization of operational devices of the penitentiary system and special events, candidate of law, associate Professor

Annotation:

The article deals with the current issue of restricting the use of messengers by foreign developers for official correspondence by civil servants, including law enforcement agencies. In their work, civil servants should be guided by one of the principles-to respond promptly to the requests of society and individual citizens. This cannot be done without a rapid exchange of information. The currently popular messengers WhatsApp, Viber, Skype, Zoom, Telegram allowed you to exchange instant messages (Instant Messenger) in various formats and today they are actively used for both personal and official correspondence. The information presented in the article gives grounds to believe that the information transmitted through messengers concerning the work of state bodies and subordinate organizations may become available to third parties. Repeatedly, since 2015, the issue of banning civil servants from using WhatsApp, Viber, Skype, Zoom, and Telegram services for official correspondence has been raised at the highest state level. In 2016, an attempt was made to solve this problem in a technical way, by creating a Russian secure Internet messenger for authorities and law enforcement agencies. However, to date, the Russian Internet messenger has not been developed and officials of state and law enforcement agencies continue to use non-certified messengers in Russia when transmitting official information. As part of the study, we have proposed a legal solution to the current problem.

Keyword:

messengers; official correspondence; information protection; government employees; mobile applications; WhatsApp; Viber; Skype; Zoom; Telegram; official secrets; information and telecommunications resources.