China has the worst Internet freedom among all nations that are surveyed this year. As it turns out, Russia is now working with China to incorporate the “Great Firewall” into their system to control the Internet within their borders.
Russia has progressed in controlling their Internet by building a wide-range Internet filtering and control system. There are currently some big gaps into their system, so the country passed the Yarovaya Law over the summer.
The law mandates telecom companies and Internet providers to store data of their user base for six months, then keep the metadata for three years.
Naturally, there are issues connected to storing and handling user data that this law requires. Russia cannot just go to the U.S. for help on this concern, so they asked China for help instead.
According to The Guardian, both countries are developing the main strategy for the collaboration through conducting high-level meetings in Beijing and Moscow this year. The talks involve Russian President Vladimir Putin, Father of the “Great Firewall” Fang Binxing, and head of China’s state Internet information office, Lu Wei.
Nikolai Patrusheve, the head of the Russian Federal Security Service from 2000-2008, also had two meetings earlier this year with Chinese members on information security, and Putin went to Beijing in June to sign a joint agreement regarding the cyberspace.
Russian telecoms equipment manufacturer Bulat was reportedly in talks with Chinese telecom Huawei in August with regard to purchasing data storage and server technology from them for the Yarovaya Law.
Edward Snowden, known for leaking classified information regarding the surveillance activities of the National Security Agency in the U.S., called this as the “Big Brother Law.” He said: “Russia’s new Big Brother law is an unworkable, unjustifiable violation of rights that should never be signed.”