Not IMEI one hundred friends - Newspaper Kommersant No. 179 (7380) of 09/28/2022
In times of crisis, the authorities often recall the mechanisms and tools that they have already tried to use, but for one reason or another, not very successfully.
So, in the profile communities and chats of the “leaving”, where they exchange information, information appeared that when crossing the border with Georgia from the Russian side, citizens began to rewrite the IMEI of smartphones (unique identification codes of smartphones, tablets and other devices from 15 digits). Why exactly - representatives of the border control did not explain. Theoretically, IMEI can be used to track the device: for example, you can determine when a person changed a SIM card.
True, there is nothing special to compare these 15 figures with. The idea of registering smartphones in a single IMEI database has been discussed in Russia since the 2010s, at various times it was proposed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Communications (the predecessor of the Ministry of Digital Development) and members of the Federation Council. The creation of the IMEI database was also promoted as a means of combating the illegal import of gadgets, which, as we know, has already lost its relevance. In June, the FSB picked up the idea, recommending the Ministry of Digital Development to develop a prototype database of IMEI codes and prepare appropriate regulations to "improve the effectiveness of operational search activities." The Ministry of Digital Development did not provide more up-to-date information on the status of the creation of the IMEI database. The border department of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation for the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania did not answer Kommersant. But sources in the market claim that a single database has not been created.
It is possible that messages about the removal of IMEI codes from Russians leaving are nothing more than information stuffing, but even if this is not the case, the presence of only a smartphone identifier, albeit in conjunction with a full name and date of birth, is unlikely to seriously help. In the end, the device can simply be changed to a new one along with a SIM card.
This is what citizens who are afraid of surveillance should really think about, so about the number of databases already created, where their personal data has long been systematized: from public services to food and goods delivery portals. What was the cost of the Yandex.Food leak at the end of February, when the data of 58 thousand customers got into the network: from names to addresses and intercom codes. And there are many such databases, and comparing them with the video surveillance system with face recognition that was debugged during quarantine, at least in Moscow, is much easier than starting a register of IMEI codes for citizens traveling abroad from scratch. And with the frequency of recent leaks of any information and its instant publication on the network, those who still want to track down a newly minted emigrant somewhere abroad may not even need to make official requests to the company.
