The Russian government has introduced a new law that makes installing a tracking app mandatory for all foreign nationals in the Moscow region.
Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/government/russia-to-enforce-location-tracking-app-on-all-foreigners-in-moscow/
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Probably cause all phones sold in Russia already have this functionality somewhere in navigation module firmware or whatever.
Interesting though, what remains to be done to strengthen their power that hasn’t been already done?
USSR had planned economy and normalized misery and poverty and closed borders and so on, but its government had less power over most citizens than the current Russian government.
I mean … same already in the US too with existing phones. This just ensures russia has access to foreign phones. Honestly something I can see dictator Trump hearing and saying “oh good idea”. Sigh.
Trump is nowhere near this yet.
In Russia I’m baffled that they want to take such measures, most labor immigrants would use phones sold in Russia anyway, and they are already almost unprotected by the law, so why would one expect them to be a threat to Putin, I don’t know.
And other foreigners - again, I dunno. As a source of intelligence about their movements might be of limited use, but why.
