OAC to control international traffic

The Operations and Analysis Centre (OAC) received the right to control all traffic going through the country.

Lukashenka signed decree No. 46 on January 23 “On the Use of Telecommunication Technologies by State Bodies and Other State Organisations”, which creates the republican cloud platform to deploy software, information resources and information systems of state bodies.

The platform will be operated by the SOOO Belarusian Cloud Technologies (beCloud) that is responsible for the creation and operation of the project. BeCloud company was founded by the enterprise RUP National Data Peering Centre (51% of the authorised fund) and Russian businessman Konstantin Nikolayev (a co-owner of several major transport companies).

It's worth noting that the new decree amends decree No. 515 of September 30, 2010, “On Certain Measures to Develop Data Networks in the Republic of Belarus” and extends authority of the National Data Peering Centre that has received the right to monitor electronic messages and traffic of Belarusians and use technical means to control “the international traffic transmission and connecting to telecommunication networks of foreign states”.

The decree gives a definition of international traffic:

“For the purposes of the Decree, international traffic transmission shall be understood as the activity aimed at transmission of electronic messages (including telephone calls, telegraphic messages, service and informative messages, networks packets of date networks without limitations concerning the use of user, transport and network protocols) between telecommunication networks of the Republic of Belarus and telecommunication networks of foreign states, as well as between telecommunication networks of foreign states if transmission of electronic messages from one foreign state to another is routed through the networks located in the Republic of Belarus.”

In other words, the Operations and Analysis Centre under the aegis of the president obtained access to all traffic going through our country. It becomes clear now what the Belarusian ruler meant when he ordered the OAC head to take control over the international traffic at a meeting on January 16.