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Russian parliament not looking at imposing liability for use of VPN service — MP

Currently, there is no responsibility for people and we in parliament are not looking at imposing it, Andrey Klishas, Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building, said in an interview with the Izvestia daily

Chairman of the Russian Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building Andrey Klishas Anton Novoderezhkin/TASS

Chairman of the Russian Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building Andrey Klishas

© Anton Novoderezhkin/TASS

MOSCOW, April 14. /TASS/. No measures of responsibility for the use of VPN services are currently being looked at in Russian parliament, Andrey Klishas, Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building (upper house), said in an interview with the Izvestia daily.

"I think that if the state makes a decision of blocking, it should be able to ensure it. Currently, there is no responsibility for people and we in parliament are not looking at imposing it," he said when asked about possible plans of imposing responsibility for the use of VPN services.

Russia’s telecom operator Yota said earlier that since January 2022 the number of users of VPN services in Russia had jumped up by 53.5 times. The biggest growth began after February 21 and increased by 11% from March 14 to March 20 as compared with the previous week. VNP traffic went further up by nine times from March 21 to March 27 and accounted for 2.6% of overall traffic.

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