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Russia’s Supreme Court rejects Telegram complaint about Federal Security Service order

A representative of Telegram asked the court to recognize that the order of the Federal Security Service violated the rights of the messenger's users

© AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko

MOSCOW, August 9. /TASS/. The Supreme Court of Russia on Thursday rejected the complaint from Telegram messenger on the decision taken earlier by the court on the legitimacy of the order of the Federal Security Service, which establishes the procedure for providing the department with decryption keys for users' correspondence.

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Representative of Telegram Ramil Ahmetgaliyev asked the court to recognize that the order of the Federal Security Service violated the rights of the messenger's users. "There is a conflict of public interests in ensuring security and privacy of correspondence, and the order of the Federal Security Service obviously violates this balance," the lawyer said.

In turn, a representative of the Federal Security Service explained to the court that the agency does not expect to read messages of all users. "The request was about providing keys to the correspondence of specific users. The Federal Security Service claimed and claims to read messages only of people with corresponding court decisions," the agency representative said.

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