The capital’s traffic police is not aimed at total collection of biometrics – Kommersant

The leadership of the Moscow State Traffic Inspectorate does not set as its goal the total collection of biometric data of citizens, assured the official representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Irina Volk. This is how she commented on the article by the head of the capital’s traffic police, Alexander Bykov, about the progressive technologies used by the inspectorate.

The material was published in a specialized scientific journal “Road Safety”. It talked, in particular, about smart traffic lights equipped with cameras for facial recognition using biometric data. It is mentioned that “taking into account foreign experience, a prototype of a traffic light with a biometric camera for facial recognition tasks was tested on the Berezhkovskaya embankment in Moscow.”

According to Ms. Volk, some experts, “having not read the article very carefully, decided that the State Traffic Inspectorate advocates the total collection of biometric data of all citizens.” “This is wrong. It is necessary to distinguish between legislative initiatives of the department, formalized in the prescribed manner, and ideas submitted for discussion by the scientific community,” a representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs commented in her Telegram.

She claims that the innovations described in the article “can be implemented in practice only subject to significant adjustments to the legislation.” “However, this issue is currently solely in the nature of a scientific debate. Therefore, we ask respected experts not to rush to conclusions,” added Irina Volk.

As Kommersant found out, the authors of the national project “Data Economy,” which also involves working to simplify the circulation and use of Russians’ data, are faced with the fact that most citizens still view this with great caution. Their sentiments are revealed by polls by VTsIOM and the National Priorities ANO for the authorities. The majority of citizens are not ready to share data for any purpose and are confident that neither the state nor companies are able to provide the necessary protection of information.

Details – in the material “Kommersant” “The economy should be personal”.

Laura Keffer