On June 4, during a meeting with government officials, Vladimir Putin stated that all public services must be moved to the national messenger app called Max. According to Minister of Digital Development Maksut Shadayev, the multiplatform system is already operational.
[…]
The Max app — a Russian equivalent of China’s WeChat — was unveiled by the tech giant VK in late March. At present, it features a messenger, a chatbot builder, a payment system, and mini-apps. On June 5, VTB’s digital bank launched on the platform.
To register, a Belarusian or Russian SIM card is required — which, as The Insider noted, foreigners can no longer obtain without submitting biometric data.
As stated in the Max app’s privacy policy, the platform will collect data on:
- user devices
- IP address
- operating system
- browser
- location
- internet provider
- contacts from the address book
- all user activity within the service
- information obtained through the camera or microphone, if the user grants the app access (most users will, for example, in order to record voice messages)
Other messaging apps collect such data as well, but there’s a catch. The Max app’s privacy policy explicitly states that it may share this data with the “company’s partners” as well as with “any government or local authority.”
[…]
At least there are separate apps, and you don’t have to register your bank card with them to use maps, you don’t even need to enable GPS.