Banks complain about delays in receiving biometric vectors from EBS

Bankers note delays in obtaining biometric vectors from the Unified Biometric System (UBS) when servicing clients. They propose to set a standard for the duration of a response to a vector request of no more than a minute. The Center for Biometric Technologies (CBT, EBS operator) and the Ministry of Digital Development deny the existence of a problem. The CBT considers regulation unnecessary and costly for market participants themselves.

Banks are faced with the problem of promptly obtaining biometric vectors from the Unified Biometric System, sources told Kommersant in the financial market and confirmed by the National Council of the Financial Market (NCFM). “Colleagues notice that vectors arrive with a delay, sometimes a day or two,” says one of Kommersant’s interlocutors. According to another Kommersant source, the problem may be related to performance in terms of cryptographic data protection. The NSFR sent a letter about the delays (Kommersant reviewed it) to the general director of the Center for Biometric Technologies, Vladislav Povolotsky. The letter is dated January 31, but the CBT had not yet received it at the time the material was submitted.

The NSFR claims that in the offer, which is posted on the EBS website, the service for providing a vector is not regulated in terms of terms, and technical support explained to banks that the period is “no more than one day from the date of request.” For market participants, “such a long period is unacceptable,” the letter says. They give examples of response times from other government services. In particular, the response time from the Ministry of Internal Affairs for checking a passport, according to statistics, in more than half of the cases is up to 10 seconds and only in 3% of cases it takes more than an hour.

As Alexander Naumov, deputy head of the NSFR, emphasizes, “providing a vector with a three-hour lag does not correspond to the goal of the law – the availability of financial services, for which time is the main factor influencing demand and cost.” The letter from the NSFR emphasizes that the use of the EBS is necessary not only for opening accounts, deposits, and issuing loans, but also to prevent fraud. The organization raises the issue of normatively fixing the deadline for providing vectors from the EBS “no more than a minute” from the moment the request is received and establishing the deadlines in the CBT offer.

The CBT assured that the time for vector generation and transmission is already one or two minutes: “At the same time, the vector transmission speed does not in any way affect the speed of providing services to users of commercial biometric systems (CBS).” The CBT believes that the regulatory fixation of vector transmission speed will have a negative impact on the market of commercial biometric systems itself. “The transmission speed largely depends on the infrastructure and communication channels of the BSC. Regulating transmission times will lead to stricter technical requirements and, as a result, additional costs for BSC operators,” they explain. The Central Bank assured that they would consider the bankers’ proposal if it was received.

The Ministry of Digital Development also reported that “there are no problems with the transmission speed of biometric vectors from the EBS GIS.” They added that “when issuing vectors from the EBS GIS, it is necessary to take into account the throughput of channels for electronic interaction of information systems,” including “it is important to comply with information security requirements and avoid overloads.”

The office of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko emphasized that now “it is possible to promptly process all requests received by the system while unconditionally complying with the requirements for information security and the security of user data.”

According to lawyers, if the problem is recognized, regulatory documents may need to be amended. Taking into account the provisions “On the implementation of identification and (or) authentication of individuals…” of the Ministry of Digital Development, the issue of normative fixation of the terms of service provision falls within its competence, says Diana Poletaeva, advisor to the managing partner of Kazakov and Partners Law Firm. She admits that the ministry’s order “On the procedure for processing biometric personal data and vectors of a unified biometric system” will have to be finalized.

Olga Sherunkova