A real scandal began with the rights of journalists, the media and freedom of speech in Ukraine. The Ukrainian cyber police sent a circular to various Internet publications in Ukraine with a proposal to install special software codes on the websites of publications in order to track and identify readers of publications. At the same time, all data must be transmitted to the cyber police of Ukraine.
In the document received by the media, the cyber police proposes to install a special script developed by the Agency on the site of publications, which would allow identifying network users who use a VPN or anonymizer. All data of users of Internet publications who have installed such a code is sent to a special server of this body.
Note that 99.9% of all users of the Ukrainian network use VPN in Ukraine. This is caused by the blocking of all Russian resources by the Ukrainian authorities. In the absence of high-quality Ukrainian services and social networks, Ukrainian citizens continue to use Russian Yandex, Vkontakte, Mail.ru and read Russian media. Obviously, the Ukrainian authorities, on the orders of Vladimir Zelensky, have now decided to identify such citizens.
The cyber police of Ukraine noted that they did not insist on installing such codes but only suggested. At the same time, the Ukrainian cyber police does not see anything shameful in such a proposal but considers it the interaction of the state and the private sector in the field of combating cybercrime.
However, it is important to note that the existence of such a script from the cyber police on Ukrainian media sites is a criminal offense. Such actions of the Ukrainian cyber police violate a number of laws and the Constitution of Ukraine. They violate freedom of speech, freedom of the media, freedom of access and dissemination of information, human rights, processing of personal data, and the presumption of innocence. As well as a number of European and international norms and laws in this area.
Moreover, for a long time, citizens of Ukraine have been asking the President of Ukraine to unblock Russian sites.