Russia quietly put Apple and Microsoft on its surveillance registry

Russia's internet regulator made a change to one of its lists on October 2. It took almost four weeks for anyone outside to notice.

On that date Roskomnadzor added Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corporation to its register of "organizers of information dissemination." Bloomberg reported the listing on Wednesday, and the Russian daily Izvestia confirmed it against the registry on the agency's own website. Neither company has said a word in public about it.

What the list asks for

The name sounds like a trade directory. It works more like a wiretap order. Companies on the register have to keep Russian users' correspondence, along with audio and video messages, inside Russia, and hand it to the security services when asked. They also have to store information that identifies users, plus records of when and how their communications moved, in Russia for three years.

Izvestia describes how requests arrive. Roskomnadzor sends demands based on appeals from federal agencies carrying out "operational investigative activities" or protecting national security. Once a company starts operating as a listed organizer, it has 10 business days to notify the agency.

Refusing has a price. Companies that don't comply face fines and, in the end, restrictions on access to their services in Russia.

The registry entries are the strange part. Izvestia reports that Apple's service card describes it as "a platform for developing and providing software." Microsoft's says "an ecosystem combining software, hardware solutions, and cloud services." Google, added on January 26, got a narrow entry for Google Meet. Apple and Microsoft got descriptions broad enough to cover nearly anything either company sells.

Who else is on it

The register already holds WhatsApp, Telegram and Snapchat, and according to 9to5Mac also Cloudflare and Blizzard Entertainment. Being listed hasn't protected anyone. Russia has restricted calls on WhatsApp and Telegram and blocked Signal and Viber outright. In December 2025 it blocked FaceTime, with Roskomnadzor saying the service was being used for terrorism, recruitment and fraud.

Apple's position in Russia has been shrinking since March 2022, when it stopped selling products there after the invasion of Ukraine and limited Apple Pay. It kept the App Store running, and that has meant a steady run of fights:

• In April 2026, Russian users lost the ability to make new App Store purchases or renew subscriptions without an existing Apple Account balance, after government payment restrictions.
• In June, the Kremlin demanded an explanation after Apple pulled several apps from VK, the state-controlled tech company, along with banking apps tied to sanctioned lenders.
• In August, Russia's antitrust regulator opened proceedings against Apple for not preinstalling MAX, the state-backed messenger, and RuStore, the local app marketplace.

Comply with what, exactly

The obvious problem is that Apple says iMessage and FaceTime are end-to-end encrypted, which by its own design means it doesn't hold the content Russia wants to read. Russia has been here before. In 2018 it tried to block Telegram after the company refused to hand over decryption keys, broke large chunks of the Russian internet in the attempt, and gave up in 2020.

The registry doesn't need to win that fight to be useful. Metadata (who contacted whom, when, from where) is squarely inside the three-year retention rule, and it's often more revealing than the messages. A listed company that can't hand over content can still be asked for everything around it. And a company that refuses gives Moscow a tidy legal reason to restrict it, the same path FaceTime already went down.

The timing sits next to other list-making. On October 23, Izvestia reports, Russia's Ministry of Justice set up a register of Russians subject to restrictive measures, covering offenses such as breaking the foreign agents law and "discrediting" the armed forces.

Apple and Microsoft now have a choice to make in a country where both are already half out the door. The listing has been in force for four weeks. Nobody has said what they've done in that time.

Sources: Izvestia, 9to5Mac, MacRumors.