Putin signed a decree on the introduction of an electronic passport in Russia

The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, signed a decree suggesting the equal use of the “Gosuslug” mobile application with paper documents, including a passport. Specific cases when the application can be equated to physical documents will have to be approved by the government and the Federal Security Service.

Using the application instead of a physical copy will be voluntary, according to the document published on September 18. The draft order was prepared by the Ministry of Digital Development back in April.

At the end of 2021, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that electronic ID cards in the form of a plastic card and a QR code will be introduced in the country from January 2023. Moscow, Moscow Oblast and Tatarstan were to be the pilot regions for their introduction.

After the start of the war, the plan was actually canceled. The Russian version of the magazine Forbes wrote that the plastic document seemed too expensive to the authorities because of the war and the problems that followed it in the economy.

In addition, due to sanctions and restrictions on trade in the country, there was a shortage of chips and plastic for cards and biometric passports. In June 2022, the head of the Ministry of Statistics, Maksut Shadaev, stated that the ministry postponed the issue due to the existence of “more urgent problems”.

Forbes then wrote that the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs objected to mobile documents, which did not want to give control over identity cards to the government.