Employees of the internal political bloc of the Presidential Administration (AP) of Russia are obliged to give up smartphones iPhone for security reasons by April 1, the deadline was set by the Deputy Head of the AP Sergei Kiriyenko, wrote on March 20, Kommersant, citing the participants in a special seminar. One participant said: “We’re done with iPhone. Either throw it away or give it to children. Everyone will have to do this in March”.
The AP believes that Apple smartphones are more susceptible to hacking and spying by the West, аnd one of the interlocutors told about the recommendation to buy gadgets on the Android operating system, Chinese counterparts or the Russian “Aurora”.
The seminar participants first began to debate about such a decision, but Kiriyenko put an end to the discussion. A knowledgeable interlocutor did not rule out that the AP may purchase new smartphones for employees that are deemed safe. A source close to the AP has information that the ban on the use of Apple technology will also apply to the officials in charge of internal policy in the administrations of the country’s regions.
Four departments are part of the conditional internal political bloc: Domestic Policy, Public Projects, State Council Support, and Information and Communication Technology and Communications Infrastructure Development. The employees of the first three departments will be involved in the 2024 presidential election campaign, for which preparations intensified in early 2023.
Meanwhile, experts say that neither option offers guarantees against leaks. Modern smartphones are basically designed as spy devices: they collect, store and aggregate information and can transmit it in any direction. And it is impossible to understand where the device sends the data, because it sends them in packets, and the user cannot track what happens to them.