Report: Govt not to force people to swap passport for smart card

MOSCOW, Aug 18 (PRIME) -- Russians will not be forced to replace a customary paper passport with a smart card, a plastic card with an embedded chip, or a digital copy of the document, Digital Development Minister Maksut Shadayev said on Wednesday in an interview to television channel Rossiya 24.

“It was decided not to make it mandatory. It means that the people who are ready to change their paper passport for a smart card, a digital copy of the passport on the smartphone, will choose as they want. There is an agreed position that it will not be obligatory,” Shadayev said.

An account on the portal of state services, Gosuslugi, has become “a blueprint of the digital passport online”, and when exploiting the account, the user confirms legality of the actions committed, he said.

Commercial players and Internet floors see quite high demand for the use of the digital passport because it can help in the antifraud activity – when placing advertisements for the sale of goods, the portal’s account identifies the user, the minister said.

The decision to replace the paper passport in the country with a smart card will be made by the end of 2021.

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