Guys, don’t plan to use Grindr, Scruff, or any other gay “social” app if you’re attending the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi next February. Athletes and spectators will face some of the most invasive and systematic spying and surveillance in the history of the Games, according to the Guardian newspaper in England.
Russia’s powerful FSB security service plans to ensure that no communication by competitors or spectators goes unmonitored during the Olympics, according to a team of Russian investigative journalists looking into Sochi preparations.
Russia’s system for intercepting phone and web communications, called Sorm, has been updated and expanded for the expected, increased communications traffic. Particular attention, according to journalists, has been made to communication networks in Sochi and will allow agencies to filter users by particular keywords.
Ron Deibert, a professor at the University of Toronto and director of Citizen Lab, which co-operated with the Sochi research, describes the Sorm amendments as “Prism on steroids”, referring to the program used by the NSA in the United States and revealed to the Guardian by the whistleblower Edward Snowden.
“The scope and scale of Russian surveillance are similar to the disclosures about the US program but there are subtle differences to the regulations,” Deibert told The Guardian. “We know from Snowden’s disclosures that many of the checks were weak or sidestepped in the US, but in the Russian system permanent access for Sorm is a requirement of building the infrastructure. Even as recently as the Beijing Olympics, the sophistication of surveillance and tracking capabilities were nowhere near where they are today.”
While business travelers have been warned, LGBT participants in the games could be put in particular risk. Putin has said that competitors who wear rainbow pins, for example, will not be arrested under the country’s controversial new law that bans “homosexual propaganda”. However, it is likely that any attempts to stage any kind of rally or gathering to support gay rights will be ruthlessly broken up by police, as has been the case on numerous occasions in Russian cities in the past. Using DPI, Russian authorities will be able to identify, tag and follow all visitors to the Olympics, both Russian and foreign, who are discussing gay issues, and possibly planning to organize protests.
“Athletes may have particular political views, or they may be openly gay,” said Deibert. “I think given recent developments in Russia, we have to be worried about these issues.”
