The Ministry of Digital Transformation has published a draft amendment to the SDA, equating electronic rights to paper

Driving licenses and CTCs will soon be able to be left at home without fear of being fined when meeting with an inspector. It is enough for the driver to take a mobile phone with the application “Gosuslugi.Avto”. The corresponding amendments to the traffic rules were prepared by the Ministry of Digital Development and, according to Kommersant, agreed with the traffic police. Experts supported the initiative, but warned: if a car owner, for example, runs out of battery in a mobile phone, he will become a violator. And such a situation can even result in the evacuation of the car.

The Ministry of Digital Development published on regulation.gov.ru on Monday draft amendments to the SDA, according to which “information” from the driver’s license, STS and other documents that a person driving a vehicle must have with him can be presented to the inspector “in electronic form” – using a mobile application “Gosuslugi.Auto”. This will be equivalent to the presentation of ordinary documents in paper form.

The application “Gosuslugi.Avto”, we recall, was developed by the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate and launched in 2021. Using the information from the public services portal, the program generates QR codes that contain the data of driver’s documents in encrypted form. At first, these were only registration certificates (STS), in 2022, as part of the experiment, they began to encrypt driver’s licenses as codes. Now, according to the Ministry of Digital Development, the application is installed on more than 4.5 million mobile devices.

The QR code (animated for rights and static for STS) is read by inspectors using tablets with a key and a decoder. Until now, the presence of a working application has not exempted drivers from the obligation to carry original documents with them (this restriction was recorded in the traffic rules). The situation will change after the draft passes discussions and enters into force.

“The proposed innovation is aimed at simplifying the procedure for confirming the right to drive a vehicle, as well as the digitalization of relations related to road safety,” the explanatory note to the amendments says.

“Absolutely the right initiative, this has already been tested on the example of CMTPL electronic policies,” says Sergey Radko, a lawyer for the “Freedom of Choice” movement. “Technically, it is quite possible to replace the paper documents we are used to with electronic information. This will allow drivers not to worry about the lack of necessary documents and the associated unpleasant consequences. Moreover, the absence of these documents from the driver is not directly related to traffic safety.

Pyotr Shkumatov, coordinator of the Blue Buckets movement, also supported the amendments, drawing attention to the fact that emergency situations are possible on the road – for example, the phone’s battery suddenly runs out or the screen breaks. In this case, the expert draws attention, if the driver does not have paper originals with him, de jure he turns out to be without documents at all, which means that he can be held liable under Art. 12.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses – a fine of 500 rubles. But in the absence of STS, the car will be evacuated to a car impound. “The driver must understand all the risks that arise if he gets behind the wheel with only one phone,” emphasizes Mr. Shkumatov. “If something goes wrong, answer him.” Sergei Radko believes that the punishment for not having documents with you should be abolished altogether.

Ivan Buranov