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Kremlin unable to comment on FSB requesting encryption keys from Yandex

This is outside the competence of the Presidential Administration, the Kremlin spokesman said

© Mikhail Metzel/TASS

MOSCOW, June 4. /TASS/. Kremlin is unable to provide a comment on the actions of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), which, according to the media, has requested the encryption keys from Yandex, this issue is outside the competence of the Russian presidential administration, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday.

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"This is not a Kremlin issue, I would say, you need to ask the Federal Security Service or the government, but this is outside the competence of the Presidential Administration," Peskov said commenting on the publication by RBK.

Earlier on Tuesday, RBK informed that several months ago, FSB had requested Yandex to provide the encryption keys in order to monitor users’ data in Yandex.Pochta (an email service) and Yandex.Disk (a cloud service). According to the media outlet, Yandex has failed to provide these keys within ten days of the request. Earlier, a Russian court blocked the Telegram messenger for its refusal to share encryption keys, RBK reminded.

The Yandex press service informed TASS that the company remains in full correspondence with the Russian law.

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