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Online anonymity to end? Russian minister predicts IDs will be introduced to use Internet

Russia's Culture Minister says access to the Internet across the world will be granted "via a passport" in the future, more specifically through a personal ID system

© Sergei Bobylev/TASS

MOSCOW, January 21. /TASS/. Access to the Internet across the world will be granted "via a passport" in the future, more specifically through a personal ID system, Russian Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky believes.

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The minister stated in an interview with TASS that the Internet nowadays is an area that’s "too free" and needs regulation.

"There will be a clampdown throughout the globe in the future, trust me. I guarantee that we will get access to the Internet ‘via a passport’ in the future, not just in Russia, but across the whole wide world. This matter will be resolved during our lifetime," Medinsky asserted.

He stressed that the Internet is not within the purview of the Russian Culture Ministry. "This is just my personal forecast," the official pointed out. "You asked me about broadcasts on the Internet (of films - TASS), and I answered that access to the Internet would be possible only through a personal ID soon. And the registration and issuance of products will be carried out only through IDs, that’s 100% for sure."

All anonymity, Medinsky added, "will gradually move to the conventional ‘Darknet’ (the covert network which exists parallel to the ordinary Internet - TASS)."

The top official believes that "the introduction of the Internet as a media space in the general legislative environment" is a part of a larger picture. "The Internet is a complicated environment," Medinsky said. "There are no ready-made solutions there. Just banning and then hunting down all violators through the boundlessness of the Internet is an ineffective solution."

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