Starting from April 1st, all Apple devices sold in Russia will come pre-installed with a feature that allows users to auto-download a bunch of apps officially sanctioned by the Russian government in accordance with a recent law.

While it was initially being considered a regional peculiarity, Apple recently clarified that the decision was taken to ensure compliance with a law passed in the Russian parliament in 2019. This law dictates that tablets, laptops, smartphones, desktops and smart TVs sold in the country come pre-installed with specific apps made by Russian companies.

About the changes

The law was originally set to be put into effect in July 2020 but was later pushed back to April 2021 due to a delay in the legal process caused by COVID. Apple has reportedly come to an agreement with the authorities where it is allowed to give users the options to not install the apps if they don’t want to. Market pundits claim that this move is “worrisome” and that it could inspire other repressive regimes to make similar demands or worse, more invasive ones.

Russian news media site Vedomosti claims that a government services app as well as apps from Russian companies like Yandex, Mail.ru and Kaspersky Lab are among the ones that are to be installed on all electronic devices. The authorities however, seem to be fully aware of the fact that favouring certain apps over the others under this rule might be problematic and lead to unfair market monopoly. A Russian official told Vedomosti:

“The Ministry is not at all interested in seeing popular apps included in the mandatory pre-installation list take dominant positions. If alternatives emerge on the market, prove interesting to users and gain popularity quickly, they will be included in this selection and also offered for pre-installation.”

The International Reaction

This move is being seen as problematic and extremely authoritarian on the Russian government’s part. The authorities in the country have been regularly criticised for trying to reshape the internet and other forms of media towards a state-run mass surveillance mechanism. The pre-installed apps law specifically came to be dubbed as the “law against Apple” as it essentially dared Apple to either give up the stringent control that it likes to exercise over iOS apps or pull out of the market entirely. Adrian Shabaz, Director for democracy and technology at the human rights nonprofit, Freedom House claims:

“This comes within the context of years and years of mounting regulatory pressure on tech companies.”

This move is being seen as a measure of Apple’s unwillingness to face any more legal trouble with antitrust trials already in place in the E.U and United States. While the company usually likes to exercise absolute control over its app store and data, it has made exceptions to its policies in several countries to avoid legal heat.

“This is part of a broader trend we’ve seen in countries like Iran, Turkey, and India.”

The company has previously changed its maps and blocked its pride watch faces in Russia while it now stores iCloud data on state-run servers in China. Mikhail Klimarev, executive director of the Internet Protection Society, a Russian nongovernmental organisation, says:

“The fact is that the responsibility for the violation is imposed not on the vendor, but on the retailer. In this case, the law [will be used] to destroy small sellers. And then the big distributors will raise their prices. In Russia a lot of absurd laws have been adopted lately, which are technically impractical.”

Analysis

The incredible reach of modern technology is being seen as a double edged sword lately. It is this reach that makes it vulnerable to the tantrums of several authoritarian regimes who then use it for mass-surveillance. While the “surveillance-state” debate has been doing the rounds for a long time now, its primary focus has been big-tech corporations who use the data to earn money through unethical practices. Authoritarian regimes doing the same however, is a much scarier and much more urgent problem.

When an organisation responsible for upholding the judicial structure in a region starts making authoritarian moves, it becomes much harder to resist and rebel against them. Most big tech corporations are now complying with these seemingly unreasonable demands in order to avoid legal trouble and continue seamless operation in these countries. How these changes affect the way we interact with technology is certainly worth monitoring.