The federal law strengthens the criminal law protection of restricted information and enhances measures to combat crimes committed using information and communications technologies.
To this end, it introduces tougher criminal penalties for the unlawful collection or dissemination of information about an individual’s private life that constitutes a personal or family secret, as well as for violations of the privacy of correspondence, telephone conversations, postal, telegraphic, or other communications, when such offenses are committed for financial gain, by a group acting in concert, or by an organised group.
In addition, the law supplements the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation with Article 2746, establishing criminal liability for concluding a communications services agreement with a foreign national or a stateless person in violation of the legal requirement to include information enabling the identification of both the user of the communications services and the user’s terminal equipment. Criminal liability also applies to the inclusion of knowingly false information in such agreements, if the offense is committed by a person previously held administratively liable for a similar violation or by a person with a prior conviction for an offense under this article.