Protecting Citizens’ Rights Online: A Matter of Economic Security

I want us to have no illusions. All of us now – government and large businesses – are talking about personal data protection. As for an ordinary person – they do not give a damn about their personal data. Every other person in Russia can talk about privacy, but then they go in for some cheap sale and send all their private data to the Internet — Igor Lyapunov, Senior Vice President for Information Security, Rostelecom; General Director, Solar.

What is the digital world? It is a world where it is impossible to hide. Every interaction is recorded, every programme leaves a trace when it interacts with another programme. This creates huge opportunities for collecting personal data and preferences. Businesses today are creating digital identities to provide better targeted services, to guess people’s preferences, to compete for customers’ time. Negligent use of personal data, negligent attitude of a company to protect customers’ personal data creates the situation we are in today — Sergey Lebed, Vice President of Cyber Security, Sberbank.

Colleagues <...> shared the statistic that fraudsters make 20 million calls to Russian residents every day. Sometimes they do not get through. Sometimes the person the call has common sense and says: ‘I do not know you. I will not transfer money to you. You are not from Gosuslugi. You are not from the FSB. You are not from my mobile operator. My mobile number has not expired.’ Most people do this, but there are some people who fall for such tricks — Georgiy Gorshkov, Deputy President - Chairman of the Board, VTB Bank.

I am convinced that, first and foremost, the professional market participants are to blame for cybercrimes that occur on their platforms. If I were a bank, I would ask the following question: ‘Don’t we want to include both marketplaces and operators in the mechanism for protecting consumers from cybercrime?’ As professional market players, they should do everything to protect our citizens — Alexander Shenderyuk-Zhidkov, Senator of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation; Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation on Budget and Financial Markets.

In fact, the client is ‘snatched’ before the bank. That is, they are led to the bank, and they receive money at the bank. And this is a similar story for us. It means that we provide security on our platform. As soon as the client leaves the platform, they find themselves in an unsafe environment — Vladislav Fedulov, Managing Director for Government Relations, Avito.

This problem is no longer in the realm of fraud. First, it is the money, and then they burn relay cabinets, our base stations, and ATMs. And we are no longer talking about the economy and the loss of life, but about national security when the special military operation is underway — Igor Lyapunov, Senior Vice President for Information Security, Rostelecom; General Director, Solar.

According to a survey conducted by the Eurasian Economic Commission, 95% of the population of our Union buy goods online. We order services online among other things. Of course, this is convenient and reduces time, but we also face a number of existing problems in this environment. These are fake websites to steal consumers’ money and lead to personal data leakage. We are faced with falsification of information about the quality and other properties of goods, and often there is deception when it comes to delivery. There are difficulties with return procedures. To minimize such abuses, clear and precise regulations for e-commerce are needed — Valentin Tataritsky, Member of the Board (Minister) for Technical Regulation, Eurasian Economic Commission.

We in the Ministry of Internal Affairs have developed a law on the liability of fraudsters and scammers. It provides for criminal liability for issuing and transferring a bank card to third parties and using such a card for criminal purposes. I think society and all [government] bodies will support us. Currently, this bill has already been sent to the Government — Danil Filippov, Deputy Head of the Investigation Department, Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.

Today, there is a common understanding that all products that enter the common union market must be safe, regardless of how they are sold: online or in regular trade. <...> A number of decisions have already been taken by the heads of state of our Union at the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council. These changes introduce a new separate category of goods into the legal field of the Eurasian Economic Union – e-commerce goods — Valentin Tataritsky, Member of the Board (Minister) for Technical Regulation, Eurasian Economic Commission.

The purpose of the FinCERT system is to organize cooperation in terms of the rapid exchange of information in the event of cybercrime. If a citizen contacts either the bank or the internal affairs authorities in a timely manner, the bank will be able to suspend the movement of the account the funds have been transferred to — Danil Filippov, Deputy Head of the Investigation Department, Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.