Vedomosti: MFC will be allowed to provide biometrics services

For the second reading bill About the GIS “Unified Biometric System” (UBS), amendments have been prepared allowing the MFC to provide services for biometric identification (face scanning, voice scanning) even without presenting a passport. The newspaper reports Vedomostiwhich has a copy of the amendments.

EBS was created in 2018 at the initiative of the Ministry of Communications, the successor of which is the Ministry of Digital Development, and the Bank of Russia. The Ministry of Digital Development told the publication that the bill does not establish a list of services that can be obtained at the MFC without a passport. For services that require the provision of a passport, citizens can replace verification with biometric identification using the EBS. “A person independently and solely at his own will decides whether or not to use biometric identification services when receiving services,” said a representative of the Ministry of Digital Development.

The bill does not imply the introduction of mandatory biometrics – in the amendments to the second reading, this is spelled out as a separate paragraph. The Ministry of Digital Transformation noted that a citizen can withdraw consent to the processing of his biometrics at any time and demand that it be destroyed. The bill also introduces a ban on refusing to provide a service if a person does not want to undergo biometric identification.

A government source told Vedomosti that the amendments exclude any mention of genomic information. The Ministry of Digital Development confirmed that in the finalized bill, the collection and processing of genomic information in the EBS is prohibited. In addition, the document separately specifies the types of data that cannot be stored and processed in the EBS. These are biometric data of persons under the age of 14, genomic information and information classified as state secrets.

At the moment, you can take biometrics at a bank branch or MFC. Initially, the system was planned to be used in the banking sector – for example, to open a bank account or apply for a loan.

Read about the possibilities of the EBS in the material “Kommersant” “Bankers look citizens in the eye”.

Daria Erozbek