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Lawmaker requests Russian government to ban Windows 10 in state agencies

The lawmaker is concerned about the US company’s statement regarding privacy policy of Windows 10

© AP Photo/Elaine Thompson

MOSCOW, August 21. / TASS /. Vice-Speaker of the State Duma, lower house of the Russian parliament, Nikolai Levichev has urged the Russian authorities to check the activities of Microsoft Corporation in Russia and prohibit the use of Windows 10 operating system in state agencies.

He sent his request to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and head of Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, (Roskomnadzor) Alexander Zharov. The request was published on the politician’s website of on Friday.

The lawmaker is concerned about the US company’s statement regarding privacy policy of Windows 10. It states that Microsoft will record personal and contact details of users to collect passwords, prompts for passwords and other data relating to safety and used for authentication and access to accounts, he said. The corporation will accumulate the numbers and security codes of credit cards, IP-address, contact details of other persons, information about the location of the devices, the lawmaker said.

Besides that Microsoft "will have access, and disclose the contents of the files and transfer data, voice and multimedia messages, e-mail and other personal information of users of Windows 10," according to the lawmaker. He said he did not rule out that the corporation may transmit the data to intelligence agencies and this may lead to a leak of data about employees of Russian state agencies.

"... I ask you to consider a possibility of a total ban on the use of Windows 10 in the government, public companies, state scientific and research structures," Levichev said in his request to the Prime Minister.

He also asked head of Roskomnadzor Alexander Zharov to check how Microsoft activities in Russia meet the requirements of the law on information and "if necessary, take action under national law."

Microsoft representatives assured that the corporation does not provide any direct access to e-mail and instant messaging to the authorities of other countries.

In July, Microsoft Corp. launched its new operating system Windows 10 in 190 countries, including Russia.

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