Russia Launches An App That Could Spy On Its Citizens, Likely To Ban WhatsApp

Russia is set to launch a new digital device equipped with a brand new messenger app that experts believe could allow the Kremlin to spy on the Russian public. According to The Independent, the app named Max will be installed on every new device sold in Russia from September this year. It will reportedly provide not only a space for messaging and video calls, but will be a broader information system with access to government services and mobile payments, the outlet reported. 

However, experts believe that beneath the app's playful white-and-blue logo lies software that might work as a "spy programme", allowing Russia's FSB security service to establish a rigid surveillance programme, as per The Independent. Experts explained that the app's servers are based in Russia, meaning Max will be subject to Russian law, which grants the FSB to have access to certain materials.

With the introduction of this new app, WhatsApp, a global messenger used by more than 70% of Russians, is "highly likely" to be banned in the country. Moscow will push its people towards using Max, Mark Galeotti, a veteran observer of Russian security and politics and director of Mayak Intelligence, told The Independent.

Andrey Okun, a Russian opposition journalist, said Max would be central to the Kremlin's dream of constructing a "digital gulag". "This will be a sterile space in which the authorities have complete control over the leisure time, motives and thoughts of citizens," he said. 

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Experts also believe that the introduction of the app, which is said to have been developed on Vladimir Putin's orders, is only the latest step in the Kremlin's ability to monitor the entire Russian online sphere. 

"This is a normalisation of Russia's surveillance of its internet use... it's part of a long, long process," Keir Giles, author of Russia's War on Everybody, told The Independent. 

"The perceived threat from Western communications technology is not something that's new. It's something that has always been a focus for the Russian security services," he added. 

Mr Giles explained that Russia's security industry is frustrated by Russian citizens using foreign software such as Google, Skype and Hotmail, all of which made it much more difficult to read their messages. Western communications technologies have always been perceived as a threat by Russian security services. So after years of trying to clamp down on services such as WhatsApp, the latest move to push Russians towards Max is "really just tidying up at this point", he added.