A Chelyabinsk school checked students' phones: police confirmed it, lawyers pointed to the limits of authority

Phone checks in class

In Chelyabinsk, at the 'IT-Litsey Privilegiya' school, a check of high school students' phones was carried out during a lesson with the participation of a juvenile affairs inspector. 74.ru reported this. Students were asked to voluntarily show which chats and channels they belong to, and were threatened with having their parents called to school if they refused. According to the teenagers, the inspector looked through the contents of their phones in the presence of a social pedagogue and the class teacher; one of the students said that the gallery and recently deleted photos were also viewed on his device.

Reaction of students and police

'I had to leave one youth Telegram channel. I believe this is unlawful, it is personal and no one should poke around in other people's phones,' a student said. According to the outlet, the checks were not limited to a single class. Chelyabinsk police confirmed the incident and explained that the event was carried out after teachers reported suspicious chats that teenagers belonged to. According to the police, the juvenile affairs officer came to the school 'as part of regular preventive work' and asked for a closed group to be deleted from a messenger, where anonymous insulting messages were posted; the officer, the police claim, did not take the students' phones in his hands.

What lawyers say about the right to refuse

Nikolai Popov, head of the Forlex law firm, noted that students have the right not to show the contents of their phones to teachers and police officers, since they contain personal data and private correspondence. They can be forced to show such data only if a criminal case has been opened or an inquiry into a possible crime is underway. Earlier, a lawyer warned that the police have no right to check Russians' phones on the streets or in the metro. Thus, the parties differ in their assessment of what happened: the police describe the incident as a voluntary preventive conversation, while the students themselves say their devices' contents were viewed under the threat of their parents being called; neither version has independent confirmation in the publications.