As it became known to ASTRA, the leadership of Tyumen State University met with the United Council of Students regarding the possibility of authorization in the university’s Wi-Fi network exclusively through the national messenger Max. Prior to that, students had drafted a petition asking to cancel this innovation, and at the time of the post’s release, more than two and a half thousand people had signed it.
About 30 people attended the meeting. Alexander Boyko, head of the digital development group and director of the Information Technology Center, noted that the transition to authorization in Max has nothing to do with the limitations of the mobile Internet.
“The fact that you don’t want to use it is an opinion imposed on you by <…> Now everyone is imposing sanctions, Microsoft Office 365 and a lot of other products have been taken away from us, including equipment that has been banned from being brought into the country. We were just robbed of everything at the moment. Now imagine, our state does not block anything, neither Telegram nor WhatsApp, everything is fine. You use it all, you definitely like it. And at one point, all messengers announce sanctions and [stop working in Russia],” Boyko said, trying to prove the need to use Max. He also noted that the decision on such a method of authorization was due to the fact that the students “supported the university.” “I am saddened by your reaction to this story, that you immediately went to the media and began to complain. The media is very interested in this,” Boyko added.
The students claim to oppose the use of Max for several reasons, including the transfer of personal data, the dependence of students’ access to the university infrastructure on the installation of a messenger, the unaccounted-for majority opinion, and the Ministry of Finance’s 2025 clarification stating that the use of Max is voluntary.
