Last week, the Russian Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications (Roskomnadzor) announced that the salaries of its staff are being reduced this year “from 23% to 54%, depending on the region,” news agency TASS reported.
For example, “a Roskomnadzor employee who received last year 50,000 or 55,000 rubles [around $1,350 at the average 2014 exchange rate] may now receive 25,000 or 27,000 [around $425 today],” TASS cited Roskomnadzor vice-director Alexander Pankov as saying. A regional executive may have seen his salary fall from 114,000 rubles to a mere 43,000 rubles, he continued.
Pankov also said that his organization has seen its field of responsibility practically double since 2009, if judging by the expansion in the reach of competencies, as the legal requirements for Internet surveillance increased. Meanwhile, the service staff was downsized by 20% in 2013, from 3,800 to 3,000 employees.
Roskomnadzor is the key body in Russia for the implementation of Internet and telecom regulations, network surveillance and censorship. Included in its scope is such important legislation as that concerning personal data storage and protection.
The Russian government has drastically reduced certain expenses over the past year as a consequence of the fall in oil prices — its primary source of revenue — whereas military expenses still increased in a context of international tensions.
Source: TASS
