New rules for identifying users in messengers have come into force in the Russian Federation

As reported earlier, on the territory of Russia from today begins to operate decree government on the identification of messenger users using telecom operators.

In the process of registering a new user, the administration of the messenger must send a request about him to the telecom operator, who is obliged to respond within 20 minutes. If the data specified during registration matches the information of the telecom operator, then the user will be able to successfully complete the registration, while receiving a unique identification number. In addition, such a user will be entered in a special register of the operator, where, among other things, the service on which the registration is recorded will be indicated. If the client stops using cellular services and terminates the contract, the operator is obliged to notify the messenger about this within 24 hours. Upon receiving such a notification, the messenger must start the process of re-identifying the user. If this fails, then the client's account will be disabled, and he will not be able to use the messenger.

It is worth noting that many users will not notice any changes after the government decree comes into force, since most instant messengers check phone numbers during authorization. The main change is that the services will have to interact directly with telecom operators, and not send an SMS message with a confirmation code to a user-specified number. If the information about the current user, which is available to the messenger, matches the data of the telecom operator, then the user will not need to re-identify.

If a service fails to work according to the new standards, a fine of up to 1 million rubles may be imposed on it. In addition, such messengers will be blocked on the territory of the Russian Federation.