Russia Govt. Dumps Apple iPads To Avoid US Spying

Russian President Vladimir Putin holds an Apple iPad during a meeting of the All-Russian Congress of Judges in Moscow. (file photo)

The Russian government has forbidden the use of Apple’s iPad tablets across government agencies for security reasons including concerns over possible US spying.

According to reports, security concerns prompted the Russian government to switch from iPads to Samsung tablets to guarantee data security amid revelations of massive US spying activities.

Nikolai Nikiforov, Russia’s minister of communications and mass media, said on Wednesday that the ministers have swapped their iPads for Samsung tablets to ensure tighter security.

“He added that the changeover “took place not so long ago” and that the “new tablets are specially protected to work with confidential information.”

“Some of the information at government meetings is confidential in nature and these devices fully meet these demands and have gone through the strictest system of certification,” the minister said.

Nikiforov also denied that Russia was clamping down on US technology in response to sanctions imposed after Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula rejoined Russia.

“We are not proposing any sanctions,” he said.

But he did mention reading reports that “American special services… will significantly increase the volume of information they intercept (which) of course causes serious concern to many governmental clients.”

“This obviously orientates Russian clients, primarily state ones, to be very choosy about their partners in IT,” Nikiforov said.

He added that South Korean firms such as Samsung, along with Chinese ones, could be interesting to Russia in this respect.

US intelligence services and the military are reportedly scrambling to expand spy satellite coverage and communications-interception efforts across Russia amid heightened tensions over the Ukrainian crisis.

According to a report published by the Wall Street Journalearlier this week, the plan for increased surveillance comes as US military satellites spied on Russian troops near Crimea last month but failed to pick up any telltale communications.

Source: Press TV