“Moscow Assistant” is heading to the regions – Newspaper Kommersant No. 238 (7439) dated 12/22/2022

16 regions of the Russian Federation, Kommersant found out, plan to use the Moscow application “Moscow Assistant”, with the help of which vigilant citizens can independently record a number of violations related to traffic and parking. The capital’s mayor’s office is going to invest 135 million rubles. in a large-scale software upgrade. Users, in particular, will be able to complain about violators of parking rules in places for the disabled and taxi ranks, as well as to record a number of administrative trains on video.

The Moscow Center for Traffic Organization (TsODD) is holding a tender for 135 million rubles. on finalizing and configuring the “Hardware-software complex “Moscow Helper”” (PAK PM). We are talking about an application that has been operating since 2015, which allows citizens to take pictures of cars parked on lawns under a prohibition sign and send pictures to the Moscow Administrative Road Inspectorate (MADI) or the “Administrator of the Moscow parking space”. The car owner then receives a fine by mail. In exchange for photos, citizens receive points that can be used to top up a Troika card, a parking account, buy a theater ticket, and get a discount at restaurants. Now more than 1.2 million people use PAK PM, in 2022 more than 1 million violations were recorded using the application, which is 32% more than a year earlier.

After updating the application, users will be able to take pictures of cars parked in designated places for taxis and for the disabled. “We are carefully studying the needs of residents in parking spaces,” explained “Kommersant” in the center. “It is important that such places are used by those for whom they are intended.” The functionality will be replenished with the option to shoot video, fixing, for example, the passage of an intruder at a red light and along a dedicated lane. “We are working on the possibility of using video recording as evidence of a violation,” the TsODD clarified. “The introduction of these functions is possible only in agreement with the relevant structures and after testing.” Also, the mayor’s office wants to transfer experience in the use of “Helper” to the regions, but it has not yet named which ones. The TsODD only told Kommersant that they receive requests from the subjects, 16 regions are ready to administer violations with the help of the Assistant.

In 2019, the Supreme Court clarified in a plenum ruling that if the phone is in the hands of a person (who can choose an object for photographing), this is not an automatic fixation of a violation. The mayor’s office was not embarrassed, MADI continued to issue fines from smartphones. Citizens began to massively complain to the courts, and companies were especially active in appealing, since the fine for legal entities imposed with the help of PAK PM for parking on a lawn is 300 thousand rubles. In recent months, the courts, as a rule, take the position of car owners, follows from the database of the Moscow City Court. Nevertheless, Kommersant was told at the TsODD that the PAK PM has “all the necessary certification to consider it a means of automatically fixing violations.”

“Helper” brings significant funds to the budget in the form of fines, so the authorities continue to try to legitimize it, emphasizes the lawyer of the “Freedom of choice” movement Sergei Radko. The rulings issued with the help of the application are canceled by the courts only if a complaint is filed, Ravil Akhmetzhanov, lawyer of the Society for the Protection of the Rights of Motorists, emphasizes, for this reason, even the emerging judicial practice is still effective in terms of replenishing the treasury.

Lawyer Mikhail Nikitin, however, suggests that the TsODD wants to carry out another modernization of the PAK PM, making the system meet the criteria for the decision of the plenum of the Supreme Court, and close the possibility for the courts to cancel the decisions or at least reduce the number of appeals.

Recall that in the State Duma since 2019 there is a bill that allows fines to be imposed on the basis of photographs and videos taken by citizens using the application, but it refers to a single federal software that works in conjunction with the public services portal and a special super service, which may be be created taking into account the Moscow experience. The bill is without progress, although in 2021 Vladimir Putin instructed the government to “complete work” on the document by June 1, 2022.

Ivan Buranov