Even before the March tightening, in February 2021, the media reported on the removal of the infamous Telegram channel "Skins Market".

This channel, which published the personal data of women who allegedly engaged in prostitution and provided escort services, has been talked about for a long time on federal television channels.

Law enforcement agencies were also interested in him - the owners were accused of extorting money for removing information about the girls.

However, the "Skins Market" continued to work.   

One of the victims was able to get the canal removed.

She turned to a lawyer for help, and he, in turn, reported directly to the Telegram and Apple messenger about the violation of copyright laws.

Since the requirement to remove this content was not met, the messenger liquidated the channel itself.

But this did not solve the problem either.

The "Skins Market" immediately got a new clone, which resumed publishing incriminating evidence in mid-March.

International trend

Despite its scandalousness, the story with the "Skins Market" is just a small episode of the global trend.

In the post-Soviet space, this trend became especially noticeable in August-September last year during protest actions in neighboring Belarus. 

  • Protest action in Belarus

  • AFP

Then the Telegram channel NEXTA Live repeatedly laid out a database with the data of employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where their surnames, names, dates of birth and places of service were indicated.

“At the disposal of our editorial office was a list of practically all the current officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs,” wrote NEXTA editor Roman Protasevich on his Twitter.

  • Twitter

Subsequently, the KGB of Belarus added the creators of NEXTA to the list of those involved in terrorist activities.

A little earlier, in May last year, a major scandal with a personal data leak in Telegram occurred in Ukraine.

The local police then opened a criminal case against the administrators of an anonymous channel, whose bot gave out information about citizens from state databases, including copies of passports, driver's licenses, phone numbers, tax data, email addresses, social media pages and passwords to them.

In one "cart"

In Russia, the issue of illegal publication of personal data in the messenger is no less acute.

Passport data, information about fines, convictions, search, migration, information from the registry office or about purchased air and railway tickets, "breaking through" car owners by license plates or "intercepting" access to accounts in social networks - all this in Telegram is offered for modest rates of 1-3 thousand rubles.

Also on russian.rt.com "Attack on a new audience": Natalya Kasperskaya - on digital sovereignty, internet hygiene and safety in social networks

Meanwhile, the publication of other people's personal data in open sources is always a question of someone's safety, notes human rights activist, deputy head of the Union of Volunteers of Russia Alexei Uretsky.

“The consequences of the disclosure of data have already shown themselves in the form of persecution of the relatives and children of the victims,” he explained.

As the media wrote, in February of this year, after unauthorized mass actions on January 23 and 31, data from people allegedly supporters of Alexei Navalny were disseminated in the Telegram messenger.

  • Participants of the unauthorized rally of supporters of Alexei Navalny in Moscow

  • © Ilya Pitalev

In the same place, as the founder of the messenger Pavel Durov himself later said, channels appeared, "where the home addresses and telephone numbers of judges, prosecutors, law enforcement officers, as well as journalists and media managers are published."

These publications had very serious consequences.

In particular, after the publicity of the data of the prosecutor Ekaterina Frolova, who acted as the state prosecutor in the case of Navalny's libel against the WWII veteran, she began to receive threats, and the prosecutor was granted state protection.

“Unknown persons terrorized Frolova for several days, called her,” Uretsky said.

Durov announced the blocking of "problematic channels with personal data" and promised that similar measures would be applied "to all violators, regardless of their political views."

  • Reuters

  • © Albert Gea

This was preceded by an appeal sent by Roskomnadzor to Telegram "about the need to stop the illegal distribution of personal data."

"The publication of personal data of citizens without their consent is contrary to the law of the Russian Federation" On Personal Data "and the privacy policy of Telegram Group Inc. itself," the appeal said.

At the same time, it became obvious for a long time that such appeals alone could not solve the problem - the legislative base required improvement.

Delete on demand

On March 1, amendments to the federal law "On Personal Data", adopted at the end of last year, came into force.


The innovations are mainly the tightening of requirements for operators (including messengers) to obtain user consent to the processing of their personal data.

In particular, users should now be asked not for general consent to the processing of all their data, but send a request for each of their categories.

Also on russian.rt.com Telegram faces a fine for refusing to delete data with calls to participate in illegal promotions

In addition, operators are now required to delete personal information at the first request of their owner.

If after three days the administration of the resource does not delete the illegally published information, then the owner of the data has the right to go to court.

Hit the "Eye"

On March 12, Telegram carried out a massive blocking of bots collecting data.

Among the blocked was one of the most popular services of this kind - the "Eye of God" bot.

"At the moment, Roskomnadzor has no complaints about the administration of the Telegram messenger on issues of compliance with legislation on personal data," the press service of the department told RT.

Also in early March, President Vladimir Putin said that currently "a bill is being actively worked out aimed at protecting law enforcement officers and their loved ones from any threats, including on social networks."

Also on russian.rt.com, the Cabinet of Ministers supported the project on punishment for the publication of data from security officials

And in July this year, the launch of the Roskomnadzor information system is planned, with the help of which users will provide their consent to data processing to operators.

Messenger in law

But even after all the measures taken, it has not yet been possible to completely resolve the issue of personal data leakage.

Nevertheless, everyone has the opportunity to defend their rights to confidentiality, says Sergei Gorshkov, a lawyer at the Human Rights Center.

The main thing, he believes, is not to be idle in the event of an incident and are not afraid to contact the appropriate authorities.

“First of all, you need to contact any police department and write a statement to conduct a check and establish where this data came from, who provided it.

After identifying the perpetrators, they can be prosecuted, ”the lawyer explained.

According to experts, most often in such cases, criminal cases are initiated under Art.

137 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Violation of the inviolability of private life"), which provides for liability for "illegal collection or dissemination of information about a person's private life, constituting his personal or family secret."

According to the SAS "Justice", in 2020 there were more than 800 cases on the commission of this type of crime for consideration by the courts of the Russian Federation.

In 60% of cases, according to lawyer Sergei Gorshkov, following the results of court proceedings, the parties conclude an amicable agreement - the perpetrator simply deletes the information he has published about the victim.

In the remaining 40%, a sentence is passed, the expert added.

The maximum sentence for violation of privacy without aggravating circumstances is small - up to two years in prison, but Art.

137 of the Criminal Code is "clear and categorical," says Gorshkov.

“When Telegram channels deliberately leak information, this is a sign of a criminal offense.

Article 137 of the Criminal Code clearly states that we are prohibited from disseminating personal data without appropriate permission, including in public sources, to which instant messengers have long been equated, ”the lawyer explained.

According to him, half of the cases on the dissemination of personal data do not reach the court at all; they are terminated at the stage of verification or during the preliminary investigation.

“The culprit is established, the police come to him and try to minimize the punishment, up to reconciliation with the victim.

Even if someone posted information not on his own behalf, but anonymously, ”the lawyer explains.

Gorshkov added that if the dissemination of data entailed the infliction of any harm, for example, lost profits, the victim can receive monetary compensation.

Taken together, all these measures - provided they are regularly implemented in practice - will help to weaken the negative trend.

However, none of the above measures have yet to completely solve the problem with the leakage of personal data, says Internet ombudsman Dmitry Marinichev.

“If you look globally, the problem with the publication and leakage of personal data is a serious issue that still has a lot of work to do,” concluded the Ombudsman.