Russia to collect location data on all its citizens
By 2025, Russia plans to have established a unified register of information on all its citizens. As part of the preparation for this, the government will collect information on citizens’ actual place of residence.
Alexander Surinov, head of the Russian Federal State Statistics Service, told Rossiyskaya Gazeta in an interview that data collection will begin in a pilot census in 2018.
“We are going to do a seamless transition to the population register, which will be established in Russia by 2025, so that it will be possible to connect the actual residence to the registration. To see, where do people live? Which population category? Young, old, male, female? What level of education do they have, who do they work for, or do they not work?” Surinov explained.
Census lists will now have a new registration address column. If it becomes clear that a person lives at another address, they will simply be transferred to that address in the database.
Surinov emphasized that all of the collected information is confidential, and will not be given to the Interior Ministry or the tax inspector.
In summer last year, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev gave the order to create a unified register of information on citizens, giving each person a unique identification number.
The database will consolidate the information on the population that is available to the government, which is currently collected and stored on the level of the various departments.
The goal of the project is to “unify” the existing data, ensure that it is “consistent”, and also to increase the population’s “discipline” in payments to the government.
In particular, the unified database will monitor how contributions are made to the Pension Fund, the Social Insurance Fund, and the Compulsory Health Insurance Fund, as well as “taxes, duties, and other mandatory payments”.