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Network cables in a server cabinet: Monitoring is now automatic in Russia
Photo: Julian Stratenschulte / picture alliance / dpa
"Oculus" is the name of a new surveillance system that Russian authorities use to search the Internet for content that is banned in the country.
At the request of the Russian news agency Interfax, the communications agency Roskomnadzor announced that the Oculus information system was "already in operation" and "fully fulfilling the tasks assigned to it".
Accordingly, the system recognizes “violations of the law in images and videos”.
The agency published a call for tenders for the development of the system in September last year, the Interfax report says.
The development costs are given as 57.7 million rubles, the equivalent of about 730,000 euros.
The system is said to have been tested as early as December and integrated into the monitoring systems from January this year.
200,000 images per day
The main task of the system is to detect violations of Russian laws in images and videos, a representative of the Roskomnadzor-subordinate regulatory authority GRFC (General Radio Frequency Center) told the Moscow daily »Vedomosti«.
The system recognizes "images and symbols, illegal scenes and actions," he said.
It can also analyze texts shown in photos and videos.
In addition, Oculus is able to independently recognize "extremist content", "calls for illegal demonstrations" and "drug-promoting content, LGBT propaganda and others", he explained.
Previously, employees of the GRFC had largely searched the Internet manually for prohibited content, the "Vedomosti" quoted a Roskomnadzor employee as saying.
On average, they viewed 106 photos and 101 videos per person per day.
Oculus, on the other hand, "will analyze more than 200,000 images per day" and thus "automate and significantly speed up the monitoring of visual content".
It should also be able to evaluate handwritten texts.
Since the beginning of the war of aggression against Ukraine, Russian authorities have been trying to suppress unwelcome opinions in the country.
Right from the start, this also included attempts to prevent the formation of opinions on the Internet.
To this end, Vladimir Putin had hastily enacted a law against alleged “fake news” about the war, which criminalizes the “public dissemination of intentionally false information about the use of the armed forces of the Russian Federation”.
By 2025, the Russian Internet surveillance system that has now been introduced is to be further expanded and new capabilities added.
This includes, for example, that it should be supplemented in the future with other types of violations of the law and, for example, be able to classify "poses of people".
mak/Reuters