A super application for 500 million rubles will be created for officials in order to reduce sanctions risks

Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media posted on the public procurement portal, an auction for the creation of a super application for officials. For tender noticed Kommersant. The application was published on October 22, the results of the tender will be announced in November. Lot price – 487.7 million rubles. The introduction of a super application for officials may in the future lead to a violation of the rights of other citizens, but it is still impossible to assess these risks, told The Insider in Roskomsvoboda.

The super application will combine a messenger, means for audio and video conferencing, a service for working with tasks and assignments, cloud storage, an internal portal, work with office documents and antivirus software, said Konstantin Gurzov, director of the cloud services development and data management department of the Ministry of Digital Science. According to him, officials will be able to install super applications on personal devices, taking into account information security requirements, and also use it through a browser.

So far, the declared system is designed for 100 thousand users. It is being developed to “improve information security and independence from sanctions risks,” the terms of reference says.

The first working prototype of the superapplication is planned to be launched by the end of 2022. Employees of the Ministry of Digital Industry, Rosstat, the Pension Fund, the Ministry of Economic Development and the Courier Service will start using it.

The application will still work on old hardware, and the hardware of the system will be finalized later to avoid unnecessary costs, Gurzov said. According to a Kommersant source, more than half of departments (54%) still use Microsoft Exchange Server software, but “because of the sanctions, the state is moving away from foreign solutions towards open source solutions or domestic technologies.”

Roskomsvoboda believes that the introduction of a super application for officials may carry risks of violating the rights of other citizens. “The composition of the applications included in this superapp is unknown – therefore it is difficult to assess the risks, as well as the adequacy of the contract price,” Artem Kozlyuk, head of Roskomsvoboda, told The Insider. – It is important that this superapp does not subsequently become mandatory for those who somehow interact with officials, so that, for example, ordinary citizens do not have to use imposed services with opaque systems for collecting information about themselves. But since we are not talking about this yet, the development of this initiative should simply be followed. “

In August reportedthat the Russian authorities plan to transfer all civil servants and employees of budgetary organizations to Russian messengers and other IT services by 2022. How explained RBC in the Ministry of Digital Industry, a new measure will be needed to protect the data and ensure that there will be no unauthorized access to it.

In addition, the Ministry of Digital Science admits that, due to sanctions, government organizations will not be able to use foreign services in the future. The ministry recalled that at the end of 2020, Microsoft refused to sell the software of the Moscow State Technical University. N.E. Bauman. The company feared US restrictions as the university trains specialists for the defense industry. In April 2021, Zoom also banned Russian government officials from purchasing their software from distributors.

The Russian authorities announced their intention to transfer to domestic equipment and programs of the owners of communication networks, IT systems of government agencies, energy, financial, telecommunications and other companies by 2024. According to the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, the transition will cost 1 trillion rubles.