Location Tracking App for Foreigners in Moscow
Russia is proposing a rule that all foreigners in Moscow install a tracking app on their phones.
Using a mobile application that all foreigners will have to install on their smartphones, the Russian state will receive the following information:
- Residence location
- Fingerprint
- Face photograph
- Real-time geo-location monitoring
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this. Qatar did it in 2022 around the World Cup:
“After accepting the terms of these apps, moderators will have complete control of users’ devices,” he continued. “All personal content, the ability to edit it, share it, extract it as well as data from other apps on your device is in their hands. Moderators will even have the power to unlock users’ devices remotely.”
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Dan H. • May 28, 2025 7:54 AM
I suppose it is worth pointing out that whenever a government tries to gain information in a way that is transparently obvious, it generally results in that attempt being gamed?
An example was a cafe in London in the 1970s. The cafe was known for being a meeting-place of various political dissidents of all stripes and for that reason the police had seen fit to install a fairly obvious tap on the telephone.
As a result of realising this the cafe owner had decided upon a cunning plan to foil this tapping. Anyone leaving the cafe would be given a coin, perhaps 10 pence, and told to phone back and ask where the riot would be. On being told when and where, they should on no account even leave their house on that day.
This went on for some weeks with the police becoming more and more convinced that a huge political riot was due. Phrases such as “…and remember to bring your Sten gun” and “…don’t forget the petrol” helped the police along with this belief.
On the day of the riot the proposed site, a small park, was surrounded by huge numbers of police. The only civilian present was an elderly and exceedingly puzzled pensioner slowly walking an equally decrepit dog, which occasionally wagged its tail at police officers and showed no other interest in proceedings. After the pensioner had gone home the police were left completely alone to ponder the source of their intelligence.
The wire tap was removed soon afterwards.