The Ministry of Digital Development's project on biometrics was suspected of discrimination against IT companies

The new rules for the use of biometrics discriminate against the largest Russian IT companies, according to the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP). Car sharing services and foreign platforms were also under attack, experts warned.

The draft amendments, developed by the Ministry of Digital Development, prohibit the collection of biometric data and their use by companies with a foreign participation share of more than 49% and a capital of less than 500 million rubles. According to Kommersant , the RSPP asks that these requirements not be extended to companies that use, but do not transmit, biometric data via the Internet. The rules come into effect from 2022.

The press service of the Ministry of Digital Development said that the project only clarifies the procedure for accrediting companies to work with biometrics, detailing the law already adopted at the end of 2020.

If a number of companies fail to collect and process biometrics, it will be critical for ecosystems, experts say. In addition, carsharing services and foreign platforms Booking.com, Avito and AirBnb will not be able to verify people using scanned documents via the Internet. Under attack are banks like Tinkoff (owned by the Cypriot TCS Group), the Yandex ecosystem (owned by the Dutch Yandex BV), as well as Sberbank, VTB, Rostelecom, and others, analysts say.

• To collect biometrics and use it, the Unified Biometric System (EBS, a project of Rostelecom and the Bank of Russia) operates. In February, about 164 thousand citizens were registered in it.