On December 1, they should start from Moscow, and by 2023 cover all regions. In addition to standard personal data, a plastic card will have an iris pattern, fingerprints, a signature and the same QR-code sewn into it!
Yulia Suntsova
The number one topic in Russia is the legalization of vaccination QR-codes to further stimulate voluntary-compulsory vaccination.
The measure provokes a lot of debate. In the regions, clashes began in public transport, where now they should not be allowed to go without QR codes. It is all the more paradoxical in what complete silence the campaign to replace paper passports with new samples with an "electronic carrier" (that is, a chip) starts.
On the website regulation.gov.ru and in the Consultant. Plus, there is a draft presidential decree "On the passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation, containing an electronic carrier of information" developed by the Ministry of Digital Industry.
In order to ensure the constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens of the Russian Federation, public order and national security, including increasing the security of passports that prove the identity of citizens of the Russian Federation on the territory of the Russian Federation, improving the procedures for identity and identification of citizens of the Russian Federation on the territory of the Russian Federation , I decide:
a) a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation, which certifies the identity of a citizen of the Russian Federation on the territory of the Russian Federation, containing an electronic storage medium (hereinafter referred to as a passport containing an electronic storage medium);
b) an electronic document (information) generated using a special program for electronic computers installed on individual mobile devices and the accompanying information and telecommunications infrastructure, used as the main identity document of a citizen of the Russian Federation on the territory of the Russian Federation in accordance with subparagraph "d" of clause 2 of this Decree (hereinafter referred to as an electronic document) <…>; - the document says.
In other words, the old paper passport of a Russian citizen should gradually transform into 1. a plastic card with a microcircuit and 2. an application connected to it on smartphones.
All information from electronic passports of citizens will also be duplicated in the information systems of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.
But in addition to the standard personal data about the owner, much more information will be sewn into the electronic passport than into the vaccination QR code, namely:
- biometric data - iris drawing, fingerprints, hologram, etc.,
- digital signature,
- data from the registry office databases (marital status, children),
- pension and insurance certificates,
- driver's license, registration certificate and vehicle passport,
- data of migration registration, etc.
And most importantly, all this information will be absorbed by the same single QR code, which is also an integral part of a digital passport (!)
In accordance with the draft Presidential Decree, a passport with an electronic carrier and an electronic document generated by a mobile application are put into effect in Russia from December 1, 2021 - THAT IS ALREADY AFTER A WEEK.
Until this date, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Digital Development of the Russian Federation were instructed to ensure the possibility of issuing and issuing a passport containing an electronic storage medium, as well as the formation and activation of an electronic document, and the Government of the Russian Federation - to ensure the technical possibility of using an electronic passport throughout the territory of the Russian Federation.
From December 1, a new passport was to be issued on the territory of Moscow, in all other regions - as far as technical readiness, but no later than July 1, 2023.
The first digital passports will be given to adolescents who have reached the age of 14 and those who are now approaching the deadline for replacing a paper passport - upon reaching the age of 20 and 45.
On September 29, the Interior Ministry announced its readiness to introduce electronic passports in Russia.
By the end of 2022, new passports are planned to be issued in three pilot regions of Russia, said the head of the Ministry of Digital Affairs of the Russian Federation Maksut Shadayev at an expanded meeting of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy on October 18, 2021.
According to the results of the sociological survey "Superjob" conducted in May 2020, only 22% of Muscovites were then ready to change their paper passport for an electronic one (or a mobile application). 81% of the interviewed women and 74% of men opposed the experiment. The loyalty to the idea of electronic passports is lower among the respondents, the higher their incomes.
Representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church also spoke out against replacing paper passports with QR-codes.
"People do not trust those electronic substitutes that are gradually replacing the documents familiar to a person. Nobody really knows how they will act, who will hide behind them, how they will be controlled", - said the head of the Moscow Patriarchate Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk on the air of the Russia 24 TV channel.
According to him, a serious problem is the leakage of personal data of citizens from electronic databases, which we hear about all the time.
"Firstly, in contrast to the initiative to introduce vaccine QR codes, no one really heard anything about electronic passports. Perhaps one should suspect that “vaccine QR-coding” was some kind of testing model. Although the difference is that you can't buy a digital passport. But here I am an interested, politicized person, I constantly watch the news, but I don't know anything about it. I think that for the majority of Russians this event remained unnoticed, although it will affect all of them", - sociologist, Ph.D. in Economics Sergey Belanovsky told Novye Izvestia.
- I think that the replacement of paper passports will take place gradually. The authorities have learned very well since the Pension reform that simultaneous innovations lead to an explosion, but the gradual build-up of administrative pressure gives a good result. - thinks political scientist Gleb Pavlovsky. Those who really want to get such a plastic card will go first. In the end, it is convenient - one document instead of several that you constantly carry with you, you periodically lose, or, like me, every time you frantically remember how this SNILS looks like. Then they will "digitize" employees of budgetary and near-budget organizations. And then, probably, they will come up with a set of conditions for every citizen who applies, for example, for a certificate to the MFC. They will say that according to the old model of the passport this certificate can no longer be obtained, or that their devices no longer read the paper, and they will offer to reissue the passport.
- At some point, the limit will come - without digital passports, only those with negative motives will noticeably outweigh positive ones, and then this category of people will in every possible way evade the procedure. And the more pressure will be on them, the worse the results will be. Sabotage - this term was used by political scientist Gleb Pavlovsky in the case of vaccinations.
"This is, of course, primarily about gray wages. In our country, not so many citizens receive a purely white salary, while unreported income helps a large number of people actually survive. My friend officially works in a budgetary organization, but there she receives only 30% of her income, the rest comes at stake. Given the massive shadow employment in Russia, people, of course, have something to hide. But, in my opinion, this is not all started for the tax police, at least at the moment. The authorities are now keenly monitoring where resistance may arise and where not, and try not to step on sore corns. There is no such "dizziness from success" to drive everyone to collective farms", - says Sergey Belanovsky.
The potential for the use of oppression is, of course, great when such an instrument is in the hands of the authorities. We cannot know what is in our heads, the example of China is before our eyes, as they say. I don’t think, however, that this transition is due to the need to better control opposition-minded citizens. Firstly, this is for the authorities - still a negligible percentage of people. Secondly, it is too costly an undertaking - for the sake of this percentage to re-equip the entire country, it is cheaper to attach personal employees to specific citizens, the expert adds.
- But, of course, there are risks. Leaks, of course. As a curiosity, I recall a story about the theft of an array of data from SMS from users of cellular operators. After that, the girl was very indignant that her message to a young man was shown on TV, and she had two young people. Someone - one of them or both, I don't remember anymore, was dissatisfied. Or maybe they just decided to strengthen the family with a new electronic passport? They will track and control the number of connections, fix betrayals - who knows...
- The state already has all the data on citizens who will be in the electronic passport. A person's profile on Public Services, for example. Of course, there are risks. First, who will have access to this data? We are now being asked to show our passports anywhere. Any security officer or security guard in a business center may require a document. And if the electronic passport is still introduced, then this security guard will immediately see who I am, where I am registered, who is the wife, whether there are children, what car I drive - the question is, why the hell? - political analyst, Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, Higher School of Economics, Boris Makarenko told Novye Izvestia.
Will the levels of access of various verifiers to personal information about me be somehow ranked? It is necessary to provide a system that for each potential inspector or scanning your QR code would open only that part of the information that is related to the official function of the inspector. It is these risks that must be dealt with without throwing out the child along with the water, the political scientist emphasizes.
"In general, it would be unfair to say that citizens are en masse against digitalization. The amenities it brings are tremendous. No one will give up the opportunity to call a taxi from the phone, fearing that its position will be discovered - we still turn on geolocation. And banking services, and delivery, indeed, and the registration of their relations with the state is faster. But now we are having an unpleasant clash of techno-optimism, which for many years distinguished us, for example, from Europe and the United States, with new government initiatives that citizens suddenly ceased to like. Electronic voting, QR-codes that let you or don't let you go where you want to go, and an electronic census. You see, we had a good groundwork and a reserve of some public acceptance of this very digitalization and this country of progress, which could be used. But over the course of 2020 and 2021, it somehow got worse with this...", - comments political scientist and publicist Yekaterina Shulman.