Mintsifra offered to collect biometrics without the consent of its owners

The Ministry of Digital Development proposed to collect the biometric data of Russians in the Unified Biometric System (UBS) without their consent, follows from the amendments to the draft order of the department on the collection and storage of biometrics in the UBS, transmits Kommersant. It is specified that the amendments were sent to the Analytical Center under the Government of Russia on August 2.

According to the document, the new rules will greatly simplify the process of placing biometrics in the EBS. In particular, if earlier it was required that biometric data contain a cast of a person’s face and voice, now the presence of either an image or a recording will be sufficient reason. Thanks to this, any information system will be able to place biometric data in the EBS, but only the structure that downloaded them will be able to use them.

In addition, the authors emphasize that the permission of citizens to collect and update biometric data in the EBS and “other information systems that provide identification and / or authentication using biometric personal data” is not required, since their placement without consent is enshrined in amendments to the law ” About information”, adopted on July 6.

The department noted that any organization that placed the data of a citizen in the EBS is obliged to notify him of this, and he, in turn, can apply to the system with a request to destroy his data.

It is assumed that the transfer of data from commercial biometric systems to the EBS will increase the security of processing and storing biometrics, the Ministry of Digital Development explained.

However, such a move could lead to the chaotic collection of biometric personal data from all possible sources, including from CCTV cameras at metro entrances, banks and other financial institutions, said Kirill Lyakhmanov, Chief Legal Counsel of the EBR intellectual property practice. In addition, in his opinion, many data of people who have submitted biometrics to different organizations can be duplicated, since each operator has access only to the information that he posted himself, which means that storing such a volume of data in a single system makes the consequences of a leak catastrophic. Rostelecom, which is the EBS operator, declined to comment.

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