2023-07-16 15:49:00
O Financial Times revealed that Russian authorities have begun to ban thousands of government employees from using Apple devices for official state use. Starting this Monday, the country’s Ministry of Commerce will ban the use of iPhones for all “work purposes”.
This restriction is already in place or is expected to start soon in other agencies, including Russia’s Ministry of Telecommunications and Mass Media. This prohibition covers all apple products. In some cases, however, employees may continue to use these devices for personal use as long as they do not open work correspondence on them.
It is worth remembering that, following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia last February, the company cut access to Apple Pay. It then stopped all product sales in Russia, claiming the decision was in response to the invasion.
The ban comes following Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed in early June that it had uncovered a “spy operation by US intelligence agencies” involving Apple devices. The body said that thousands of iPhones, including those in use by the country’s diplomatic missions in NATO countries, were “infected” with the virus. monitoring software.
Without providing evidence, Russia also claimed that Apple had collaborated closely with US signals intelligence to provide agents with “an extensive range of control tools”. The tech giant has denied these allegations, stating that it “has never collaborated with any government to create a backdoor into any Apple product and never will.”
The move reflects the Russian government’s desire to lessen its dependence on foreign technology. As The Times notes, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree last year ordering institutions involved in “critical information infrastructure” to migrate to domestically developed software by 2025.
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