Russia has a new way to surveil its citizens: a “super app.” Made by the Russian tech company VK, the app is called Max, and as of September 1, it’s required on every new phone sold in Russia. Max enables users to send messages, talk with one another, share files, and transfer money to and from Russian banks. The Kremlin’s ultimate vision for the app is expansive: Citizens will use it to send texts and make calls; parents will communicate with their child’s school; residents will be able to prove their identity to government agencies and businesses. Max’s wide range of uses has prompted analogies to China’s WeChat.
The Kremlin’s goals with the app appear to be twofold: By restricting the use of alternative platforms such as WhatsApp, President Vladimir Putin can continue his effort to construct an independent (in his view, “sovereign”) Russian digital sphere. And though Russia and China have many differences when it comes to technology, the Kremlin still clearly wants for the kind of device-level surveillance that China has achieved; Max represents a step in that direction, offering Putin a new tool to monitor Russians—and even Ukrainians in Russian-occupied territories—in deeper ways.
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