The Russian government officials have stopped using their iPads opting for Samsung tablets by the South Korean tech giant. All communication devices used for meetings and sessions of the government agencies were swapped completely. The official source said that the changeover was caused entirely by technical matters and denied that Russia was clamping down on U.S. technology in response to the Western sanctions imposed over the political standoff. “Some of the information at government meetings is confidential in nature and devices should meet fully these demands and have gone through the strictest system of certification. So, it is connected purely to technical issues. It has nothing to do with the U.S. or South Korean background,” Russia’s telecoms minister Nikolai Nikiforov commented on the government’s decision. But he did mention that "American special services... will significantly increase the volume of information they intercept which of course causes serious concern to many governmental clients. This obviously orientates Russian clients, primarily state ones, to be very choosy about their partners in IT." Recently, several scandals of recording private phone talks have broken worldwide. Mass media in different countries often cover the spying issues. In particular, a reliable source in Germany reported that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has a blackdoor access to Apple’s iOS devices on evidence that a spying malware was discovered in its operating system earlier this year. Apple’s officials issued a firm denial of participation in NSA programs and highlighted that protection of the company clients’ personal data is the top priority of Apple’s policy. “Every time we hear of attempts to violate the security of Apple devices which have been acknowledged as the most secure in the high tech industry, each complaint is carefully and individually investigated. We take all necessary efforts to protect our customers, no matter who might be involved,” the U.S. tech giant notes in the statement. In the meantime, Russian civil servants have decided in favor of new Samsung tailor-made, secured tablets designed to be used with the confidential information the government often need to handle. Interestingly, some of them shared the news that Apple devices had been barred in the government in their Facebook and Twitter accounts using their private iPhones.