Duma orders staff to report on all data they disclose on internet

Russian business daily Kommersant reported on Thursday that the document requiring all staff to report on their internet activities was published on the State Duma intranet earlier this month.

The report is to be submitted as a signed form detailing the “addresses of websites… on which the civil servants posted any publicly accessible information about themselves, as well as any data that would help to identify them.”
The form must include, among other things, their name, date of issue of their passport, and the position they hold.

The State Duma internal instruction is based on a government order issued at the end of 2016. This order requires all civil servants to report their internet activities in 2016 by April 1.

It also states that starting from 2017, anyone who applies for a job in a state agency must provide information about his or her internet activities for over three years prior to the date of application.

The bill does not contain any universal rules for all civil servants, but it does order human resource departments of various state agencies to develop their own rules and to brief their employees on them. Those who violate the social network code can be fired “due to the loss of trust” – which would bar future state employment.

Several unnamed sources in the Duma told Kommersant that the new requirements were extremely difficult to meet, as the order requires reporting on every post made in social networks, and other internet activities, which can be difficult or next to impossible to remember. They also said that they were already overburdened with reporting following the introduction of a law requiring them to report all income and spending.