The ZT service has begun advertising a new messenger app called Tochka Kontakta for communication with prisoners. The human rights group Pervy Otdel drew attention to it. The advertisement links to a separate website describing the platform’s functions.
According to the published information, the service allows users to send prisoners short text messages and letters, as well as voice and video messages, photographs, and other files. It also promises the option to submit petitions and formal requests and track their status.
The platform will be paid. A message of up to 200 characters costs slightly more than three rubles, while a letter of up to 2,500 characters costs 35 rubles. Pervy Otdel notes that this is about half the price of sending a form through ZT or the FSIN-Pismo service.
All correspondence is subject to review by a censor. According to the service description, the check can take up to three working days. In addition to correspondence, prisoners can be given subscriptions to entertainment content in categories including sports, music, humor, and news. One section costs 99 rubles, though the website does not specify how long the subscription lasts.
The developers say the app will soon appear in the App Store, Google Play, and RuStore. For now, it can be downloaded directly from the site as an APK file for Android devices. The website also claims the service is already operating in two penal colonies in the Leningrad region and one colony in the Pskov region. At the same time, the instructions do not make clear how a prisoner is supposed to register in the system.