Russia has added Apple and Microsoft to a state registry that obliges companies to store users' messages inside the country and hand them to security services on request.
Photo: Serey Image Service
The communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, listed both companies on Friday, October 2, 2026, as "organizers of information dissemination." The change went unnoticed for weeks until Russian media spotted it in the regulator's public database on Wednesday, October 28, 2026. Apple is entry 594 and Microsoft is entry 593.
The label sounds harmless, but it carries heavy duties. Listed firms must keep a record of who users talked to, when and how, plus data identifying the users themselves, on servers in Russia for three years. They must also store the content of messages, including text, voice, photos and video, for up to six months. Security agencies can then ask for it. Companies that refuse face fines and, in the end, restrictions on their services inside Russia.
A growing list
The registry has existed since 2014, and several hundred companies are on it. Russian firms such as VK and Yandex sit there next to foreign apps like WhatsApp, Telegram and Snapchat. Google and its Meet video call service were added in January 2026. Since 2024, the regulator can list a company against its will once a court finds it repeatedly ignored the rules. Russian outlet News.ru noted it is not known whether Apple and Microsoft were added by force or agreed to it. For now, their services in Russia have not been restricted.
For Apple, the timing is awkward. The company has built its brand on privacy, and its iMessage and FaceTime services use end-to-end encryption, meaning only the people in a conversation can read it. A law demanding stored messages on request puts that promise on a collision course with a government that wants to read them.
Why it matters beyond Russia
This is how surveillance usually grows: not through one dramatic ban, but through a registry entry, a retention rule and a quiet request from an agency. Once a company keeps your messages and your contact history on a server, someone with power can ask for them. The only real defense is a platform that never collects that data in the first place.
That is the idea behind Serey. Anonymous accounts need no email, phone number or real name, the site uses no tracking cookies, and it sells no data. What is never stored can never be handed over.
Would you keep using an app if you knew a government could read your messages?
0.00 SRY