Unified Biometric System

Russia Moves to Allow Biometric Data Processing for Suspects and Convicts Without Consent

Russian law enforcement agencies may soon gain the legal right to process biometric data of suspects, accused individuals, and convicted persons without requiring their personal consent. A corresponding draft bill has already been submitted to the government and is scheduled for review at the next cabinet meeting, according to TASS. The measure covers fingerprints, facial images, voice recordings, and other physiological or behavioral characteristics used for identification. If approved, prior permission from the individual will no longer be needed when biometrics are used in criminal proceedings. The change applies not only to those already convicted but also to suspects and accused persons whose guilt has not yet been established by a court. For ordinary citizens, enrollment in the Unified Biometric System remains voluntary and is used for remote identity verification when accessing financial and government services.

Natalia Kasperskaya Advises Against Mass Biometric Rollout in Russia Citing High Costs, Reliability Issues and Deepfake Threats

Natalia Kasperskaya, president of InfoWatch and chair of the Domestic Software association, has warned that widespread deployment of biometric authentication across Russia would be both prohibitively expensive and insufficiently reliable. She argued that systems such as face recognition, which rely on creating detailed digital models from tens of thousands of points, require enormous computing power and data storage when scaled nationally. Kasperskaya highlighted practical limitations including poor camera quality, inadequate lighting and low-resolution source images that can prevent accurate recognition, especially on older smartphones. A growing concern she raised is the rapid improvement of deepfakes, which are becoming increasingly difficult for both humans and systems to distinguish from genuine images, thereby opening new avenues for fraud. She recommended using biometrics only in limited, high-value scenarios as a supplementary verification method rather than a universal replacement for other authentication techniques. The remarks come as Russia already operates the Unified Biometric System that enables access to Gosuslugi, electronic signatures, eSIM issuance and certain banking services.