Employees of the internal political block of the presidential administration of Russia were banned from using the iPhone, Kommersant writes , citing those present at the event during which the order was given. According to them, it is necessary to get rid of smartphones by April 1 – the deadline was set by the first deputy head of the presidential administration, Sergei Kiriyenko.
The demand was explained by security considerations: allegedly, the iPhone is easier to hack, and Western intelligence services can take advantage of this. It is recommended to replace the products of the American company Apple with smartphones with the Android operating system, Chinese counterparts or the Russian OP Aurora, developed by a subsidiary of Rostelecom.
In June 2022, it was reported that Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko instructed the head of the Ministry of Digital Development Maksut Shadayev to notify the heads of Russian regions that they should use only domestic messengers. In the future, Russian officials were recommended to replace Zoom with the domestic Trueconf program.
On March 1, 2023, the provisions of the federal law "On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection" came into force. From now on, state organizations in Russia are prohibited from using foreign messengers.