Russian Citizens to Get Access to State Services Via Social Electronic Card Systems by 2014

Russia's Sberbank Optimistic Over Universal Electronic ID Card for Non-Cash-Based Society

September 3, 2010

RIA Novosti - Sberbank, Russia's largest lender, expects cash flow from its plastic cards to grow by 50% once a new universal identity and payment card system is launched in 2012.

Sberbank, together with Uralsib bank and Ak Bars Bank, is set to launch the “Unicard” project which will combine social security and banking services. This means people's welfare benefits will be on the banks books, giving a boost to their deposit base.

In addition, it is a step towards a non-cash based society called the universal card project.

Russians will be able to draw pensions, pay taxes and shop with one card. Banks in turn would have access to increased funds from the state budget making use of generated cash flows. Viktor Orlovsky, Vice President at Sberbank, expects the move will result in increased operations.

“If the project is successful we hope to see a 50% increase in turnover on cards. And, of course, we plan to issue credit applications along with these cards, providing loans and microloans to pay for services.”

At the moment, most bank cards in Russia have either the Visa or MasterCard logo on them. However, the global giants are not taking part in the Russian universal card project for reasons of national security, project participants say. The question remains whether or not the new Russian card will demonstrate real competition to the payment systems that have already taken root in the country's wallets.

In order to compete with Visa or Mastercard, the future Russian plastic cards will have to be accepted abroad, observers point out. That is not planned at the moment.

Previous attempts to launch national credit cards in Russia have proved unsuccessful, with Director General at Rusrating Richard Hainsworth saying that the underdevelopment of business organization on various levels in the country leaves almost no chance for national card systems to face foreign competition.

“It is quite possible that a local card system couldn’t work because of the structure of the tax system and legislation, whereas Visa and Mastercard don’t have to handle those sorts of problems on a global basis. So, they are able to provide to Russia cheaper products because Russian bureaucracy makes it hard for Russian companies to compete.”

However, Sberbank says, it is now closely cooperating with international payment systems in technology for the new card, as in the future they may become project shareholders, providing operations abroad.

Moscow Citizens to Receive Special Electronic Cards in 2011

September 12, 2010

Alena Popova - Moscow citizens would receive the special electronic cards starting the year 2011. This card will become a substitution for health insurance policies, pension insurance certificate, tickets and will be an ID for different public services. This was stated by the mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin at the meeting of the Moscow City Duma on Wednesday during the discussion of the draft budget of Moscow in 2011.

This new universal card would keep all the opportunities of todays “Moscow citizen’ social card,” said the mayor.

Transition to a universal electronic card will be carried out smoothly in a single year. “

City program “Electronic Moscow” will be updated in the near future, said Sobyanin.

The program priorities would be set to:

• provision of more than 60 most popular government services,
• providing of online interaction between the services involved in the calculation of social benefits,
• the creation of a unified geographic information system,
• as well as the maximum involvement of citizens in city management.

It was recently reported that Russian citizens can replace paper passports for internal identification cards, and the government is also discussing the project of the consolidation of electronic passports with bank cards under the National Payment System.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin believes that Russia needs a universal card that would provide access to all public electronic services, and would be taken by all departments.

“Sberbank”, “Bank of Moscow”, “Uralsib” and “Ak Bars” created JSC “Universal electronic card“, which would create a single information and billing system for providing information and banking services.

Russian Citizens to Get Access to State Services Via Social Electronic Card Systems by 2014

June 30, 2010

Russia Briefing – State-owned Savings Bank (Sberbank) made the first step in creating a system of universal electronic social cards, which will give Russian citizens access to future electronic state services, Kommersant-Kazan daily reports.

Sberbank has registered open joint-stock company Universal Electronic Card which will operate the new system together with Uralsib bank and Ak Bars Bank. Sberbank also has developed rules to regulate other banks joining the system. Market participants considered the proposed rules acceptable, but have not yet begun to sign up.

“At the given stage, commercial banks have been offered to join pilot projects,” Savings Bank senior Vice-president Victor Orlovsky explained to Kommersant-Kazan. “One project is being undertaken by Sberbank in Astrakhan and one by Uralsib Bank in the Republic of Bashkortostan.”

The social electronic card system through which all citizens will get access to state services by 2014 is set to be approved in September 2010. Savings Bank President Herman Gref said to the media that expenses for the social cards system creation will reach nearly 150 billion rubles over 5 years. Among that sum, bank expenses might total 40 billion rubles when participation in the project will provide banks with 4 to 5 percent profit.

The rules developed by Sberbank are similar to those of the international payment system in many respects. According to them, a bank can join the system as a basic or associated member. By analogy to the international payment system, associated participants make all calculations through the bank-sponsor which is a basic member of system. According to Victor Orlovsky, membership in the system will be made on a paid basis, but tariffs are not defined yet.

“It is necessary to understand the economic component of the given project to make a decision to participate in it,” OTP Bank Card Department head Vasily Kuznetsov said. “Participation in the project would be interesting if we could offer social card holders all the other products of our bank. It would be desirable, if banks could earn on participation in social cards system.”

Financial transparency is one of the key questions for such projects.

“We have to comprehend the volume of necessary investments and the term of their recoupment, but the given rules have not provided us with this,” Zolotaya Korona payment system representative Maria Mihajlova considers. “Participation in social projects can bring someone political dividends, but in the absence of economic feasibility it approaches more likely the biggest bank with state participation.”

Russian Government Plans Combined Identity, Payment Cards

Russian government plans combined identity, payment cards

February 17, 2010

RIA Novosti - Russians may receive universal identity and payment cards from the government that would streamline the payment of pensions and taxes, and even be used like bank cards in stores.

The Kremlin press service said on Wednesday that President Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin would present a draft law "on a national payment system" to parliament by March 31. Medvedev proposed creating a national payment system late in 2009, and ordered the law to be drawn during a meeting on Russia's financial development on February 9.

The plan is to issue plastic identity cards with microchips containing the holder's personal information and combining the features of a social security card and a bank card, enabling people to pay taxes, draw pensions and buy products in shops.

Russian Federation Issuing Universal ID Cards to Citizens (Translated from Russian by Google)

“On January 1st 2012, the Russian government will start issuing universal ID cards that will replace current national identification system (Russia has a system of internal passports), medical insurance cards, student IDs, public transport passes, and debit cards. The smart card contains unique personal identifiers and allows for multiple levels of authentication. The Russian government is pushing for local government agencies, transportation providers, banks and retail operators to adopt the government-issued ID to streamline their operations.” - SlashDot.org

January 15, 2011

Not Another CONspiracy - What goes around comes around. It's only a matter of time until American's are issued the full fledged universal electronic card. I say full fledged because your drivers license was only a stepping stone. The U.S. government has been trying to install a system like this for some time now. They just haven't come up with a good enough reason for free citizens to accept it yet. You do remember the Real ID Act of 2005, renamed in 2009 as The PASS ID Act - Providing for Additional Security in States' Identification Act of 2009

A couple of things Russia's new universal electronic card will do:

• Keep track of who has, and does not have, compulsory medical insurance.
• Keep track of who uses personal computers equipped with card reader and mobile devices.
• Keep track of a person whereever they are in Russia.
• All data on the citizen will be stored in the same place and now in the databases of government departments and agencies.

Don't worry though, you are under the careful supervision of the state. And in the future, I expect, you won't buy or sell without one.

Based on the Federal Law of 27 July 2010 № 210-FZ, "on the organization of state and municipal services" since January 1, 2012 will begin issuing to citizens of Russia of universal electronic card to ensure their access to government, municipal and other services, as well as opportunities payment of these services.

Universal electronic card -- the uniform federal standard. It will replace all the social maps that are locally produced subjects of the federation, as well as replace many other documents, such as a policy of compulsory medical insurance, student cards, travel documents on transport and many others.

With the help of maps it will be available for state, regional and commercial services in electronic form, using ATMs, kiosks, personal computers equipped with card reader, and mobile devices. Universal electronic card will also be sued for the metro, buses, trolley buses and trams. It suffices to bring the card to contactless reader.

Universal electronic card can also be used at internal circulation in the state and other organizations to expedite the service of citizens.

Like an ordinary credit card, universal electronic card can be used to pay for goods and services in shops and any other organizations. In contrast to social security cards, universal electronic card can be used for services in all regions of the country, not only in its "home" region.

It is expected that with the help of universal e-card will be available to over 1000 national and regional services, and more than 10000 commercial. Select the appropriate service, every citizen will be able to in his private office at the portal of the Federal authorized organization "universal electronic card." By default, included only a few federal government services related to health and pensions and banking service fees.

We hope that the convenience, reliability, security and breadth of services available will make a universal electronic card popular with all citizens of our country.

Universal electronic card is safe because it:

• Does not contain a database of citizen. All data on the citizen will be stored in the same place and now -- in the databases of government departments and agencies. Once these agencies have access to the records, a map merely helps you to find the correct record. Lost or stolen cards will not lead to a loss of citizen personal information about yourself;


• Unlike a credit card, a universal electronic card is specially protected. The card is built both with hardware and software protection, which are under the careful supervision of the state;


• To apply the map (except micro-transport) is required to enter a Personal Identification Number. If citizens are forced to enter it, then provide a false PIN number, which will buy time and provide operational assistance to the citizen from power structures;


• Significant transactions using the card can be optionally protected or restricted by a citizen, through his personal account at the portal of a universal electronic card;


• Map visually protected by the banknotes, and the order of its issue and circulation is centralized and under state control.

Flashback: India to Issue Biometric ID Cards to All 1.2 Billion Citizens

Slumdog Questionnaire via Engadget

July 16, 2009

Popular Science - Everyone knows the headache of waiting on line at the DMV to get a new driver's license. Now imagine repeating that process 1.2 billion times. Thanks to a new ID program, that's exactly what the government of India will soon experience.

The Indian government has just announced a plan to furnish every member of the country's immense citizenry with state-of-the-art biometric identification cards. The cards will carry retina and fingerprint data and credit and criminal histories, and will be linked to a central online database.

The national ID program hopes to clear up current bureaucratic tangles common in India, where citizens might be issued almost 20 different forms of identification. Adding to the confusion, many of those IDs don't work in different parts of the country.

Obviously, the scale of the project is rather daunting. Huge swathes of India's population are illiterate, rural, and poor. Entering the data of that vast, undocumented segment of society will significantly tax India's notoriously political bureaucracy. Even ignoring the fact that neither the huge numbers of biometric sensors needed to compile the information, nor the huge amount of processing power and memory needed to collate the data, have been assembled, registering a large number of Indians to do anything has proven next to impossible. For instance, fewer than seven percent of India's citizens are registered to pay income tax.
Just to give a sense of the scale of the project, if all the cards India plans to produce were stacked on top of each other, the resulting pile would be 150 times taller than Mount Everest.

To coordinate the huge effort of computerizing, storing, and protecting vital information about every Indian citizen, the government turned to Nandan Nilekani. Nilekani is the former head of the Indian technology company Infosys, and the person who coined the term "the world is flat" to describe the effects of outsourcing and globalization.

Nilekani needs to get moving. The Indian government plans on issuing the first of the IDs within 18 months, and they have only given Nilekani around $5 billion to complete the project.

Flashback: China Readies Super Electronic ID Card, a Worry to Some

August 19, 2003

New York Times — For almost two decades, Chinese citizens have been defined, judged and, in some cases, constrained by their all-purpose national identification card, a laminated document the size of a driver's license.

But starting next year, they will face something new and breathtaking in scale: an electronic card that will store that vital information for all 960 million eligible citizens on chips that the authorities anywhere can access.

Officials hope that the technologically advanced cards will help stamp out fraud and counterfeiting involving the current cards, protecting millions of people from those problems and saving billions of dollars. Providing the cards to everyone is expected to take five or six years. But the vagueness and vastness of the undertaking has prompted some criticism that the data collection could be used to quash dissent and to infringe on privacy.

The project comes at a time when China is doggedly remaking itself into a leaner economic machine in line with the standards of the World Trade Organization. But China is also struggling to track a restless and poor rural population that continues to gravitate toward the cities. So officials are no doubt gambling that the cards can help them juggle two important if conflicting interests: promoting economic liberalization, while monitoring citizens in an increasingly fluid society.

There has been little public discussion or news about the new cards. Brief but rapturous accounts in the official press say the cards will ''protect citizens.''

Yet many of China's toughest critics, at home and abroad, are skeptical, objecting to the concentration of so much information at the government's fingertips.

''Given the record of the Chinese government on protecting the privacy of its citizens and given the prevalence of corruption, how can we ensure that this information will be managed properly?'' asked Nicolas Becquelin, research director at the Hong Kong office of Human Rights in China. ''It's scary what the Chinese government is doing, because there is no counterweight.''

The original identification card, introduced in 1985, contains such personal data as one's nationality and birth date and an 18-digit identification number. It also indicates a person's household registration, which has traditionally tied a person to his or her province of birth.

In June, China's top legislative body, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, passed the National Citizen ID Law, approving the cards. They are to have a microchip storing personal data, but the face of the card is not to contain details any more personal than what is on the current cards. The cards are to be tested early next year, first in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Huzhou, a city in Zhejiang Province.

The agency in charge of the program, the Ministry of Public Security, declined to answer written questions seeking details. But in an interview published in July with Cards Tech and Security, a magazine of the Smart Card Forum of China, a trade group, two Public Security officials, Guo Xing and Liu Zhikui, said the current cards were too easy to forge and did not take advantage of technological advances.

They also said the new cards, which will feature a rendering of the Great Wall, would not look much different from the old ones.

''The ID card and the ID number are mainly going to be used to verify a resident's identity, safeguard people's rights, make it easier for people to organize activities and maintain law and order,'' Mr. Guo said.

The use of electronic cards is not particularly new. Other governments and companies issue them. Hong Kong began issuing its own electronic ID cards in June.

With the Olympic Games approaching in 2008, China expects a growing demand for various cards, including transit cards, bank cards and social security cards, said Jafizwaty Haji Ishahak, an analyst in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with Frost & Sullivan, a consulting company. The social services cards that are to be phased in should be able to track all the government services an individual receives, from health care to welfare.

''If you want to live in the fast lane, you have to deal with technology, but you cannot have total freedom,'' said Frank Xu, executive director of Smart Card Forum of China, who is from Huzhou, one of the test cities. ''There have to be conditions.''

But detractors say freedom has a far different meaning in China, a place where security officials have never been shy about following or using listening devices on dissidents, journalists or students.

While it may make sense to track would-be terrorists, the cards would also make it much easier for the government to monitor political or religious dissidents. After China's 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators, the government televised photographs and identification card numbers of student leaders being sought. Under the new system, tracking dissidents would be much easier, said Mr. Becquelin of the rights group in Hong Kong.

There are concerns that the technology could be prone to abuse, corruption or the whim of the local authorities who routinely thumb their noses at Beijing. This may be particularly true with China's surging population of rural migrants, now estimated at more than 120 million and growing by 13 million a year.

''This new card will make it possible to locate people who haven't registered, so I think the migrants will be more subject to abuse,'' said Dorothy J. Solinger, a professor of political science at the University of California at Irvine.

So far, anyway, most Chinese who have heard about the new cards do not seem to mind; indeed, many are enthusiastic. Yes, they say, there is always the possibility of corruption. Yes, one's privacy may be invaded from time to time.

But many Chinese said they liked the idea of guarding against identity theft and ensuring that someone who claims to be, say, a nanny, is telling the truth. Besides, there is also a sense of resignation.

''Our security officials already have all the information about us, anyway, so this is not a big change,'' said one man, surnamed Sun, who is a science professor in Beijing.

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