Russian court fines Telegram for refusal to cooperate with FSB
Moscow's Meshchansky District Court has fined Telegram Messenger LLP (London) in the amount of 800 thousand rubles ($13,945 USD) over the company's refusal to comply with a request by the Federal Security Service (FSB) to provide information for decoding user messages.
This has been reported by Interfax.
"Telegram Messenger LLP is found guilty of committing an administrative offense, and is imposed with punishment in the form of an administrative fine of 800,000 rubles," the court said.
The judge clarified that the fine collected will go toward Moscow's budget revenue.
The defendant's decision also clarified liability for failure to comply with the court’s decision and opportunity for appeals through Moscow’s Meshchansky Court.
According to the materials read out before the court during the legal proceedings, the FSB sent a request to the Telegram’s London office on July 12 of this year on the need to provide information on six telephone numbers by July 16. No response was received from Telegram.
In June 2017, under the threat of lockout, Telegram founder Pavel Durov agreed to register the instant messenger in a registry of information disseminators kept by Roskomnadzor. However, he refused to transfer data to the authorities about the company’s users. Registration in the registry, according to the law "On Information", obliges the messenger to provide special services with encryption keys.
In September, the FSB drafted an administrative protocol for Telegram messenger over its refusal to provide access to user messages.