Bosnia's Serb entity authorities to acquire internet monitoring systems from China and Russia

The company Elinc is owned by the parent firm China Electronics Corporation (CEC), which was sanctioned by the United States due to its links to China's military-industrial complex. It will deliver to the RS government software and equipment for monitoring IT communications, with the justification that this will protect the entity's institutions and children from harmful online content.

The contract was secretly signed in May 2024, and the director of the RS Agency for Information and Communication Technologies, Dražen Višnjić, has now confirmed that the system will be supplemented with Russian "organisational techniques".

"The Russians have developed very good control and monitoring mechanisms for protecting children, and we want to apply their practices here. This is about integration -- they have excellent mechanisms. The Chinese have the best system," Višnjić told the Capital portal.

He added that RS already has good cooperation with Israel in training and insisted that there is no intention whatsoever to install any "aggressive software", since the system is designed to "protect institutions", that is, critical infrastructure.

He also confirmed that a "special package" has been developed for the protection of children from harmful content when connecting to the internet, which will be monitored by Chinese and Russian solutions.

Višnjić guaranteed that this does not mean anyone will be reading users' internet content and described the entire system as a classic firewall.

However, legal experts warn that the biggest problem is the lack of any legal oversight mechanisms for such a system.

"We don't have independent oversight bodies, we don't even know how they would be selected, and we're procuring solutions that will be left at the mercy of certain officials. That could easily be abused -- personally or institutionally," said lawyer Aleksandar Jokić.

According to available information, by 2027 the plan is to establish 15 network hubs in RS, connected to a data centre at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in East Sarajevo and a main support centre in Kragujevac, Serbia.

The U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo warned in 2024 that the project raises serious concerns and poses risks for RS residents, especially questioning why the entity's government chose a company linked to China's military-industrial complex instead of alternatives with better reputations.