Next year, a smartphone in Russia can be a replacement for a passport

The State Duma proposes making SIM cards a full-fledged identity identifier, Izvestiya writes . In the spring session, the development of a draft law will be initiated, according to which a SIM card will be used as a full-fledged identifier of a citizen’s identity. Chairman of the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market, Anatoly Aksakov, believes that smartphones can already replace any payment card, the next stage in the development of mobile technologies is to replace a passport with a smartphone.

However, for the implementation of such a project it is necessary to create a register of SIM cards, where strict accounting will be established for each of them. According to officials, all this is necessary in order to avoid fraud. The initiative authors say that some mobile operators are interested in the project. Rosfinmonitoring sees some risks in this project.

In order for SIM cards to be used as an identifier for an individual, lawmakers will have to make changes to one or more existing laws. These are, first of all, such laws as “On Communications” , “On Banks and Banking Activities”, “On Countering the Legalization and Laundering of Proceeds from Crime and Financing of Terrorism”. An interesting point - the number of SIM-cards in one hand will not be limited.
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But the resale of SIM-cards may be prohibited. Parents of a child can issue a SIM card to him, age does not matter here.

Officials are confident that after the adoption of the bill for SIM-cards will have to establish tight controls. “Now the control over the sold SIM-cards is rather weak, and in case of its tightening, the SIM-cards can become a full-fledged personal identifier. In this case, you will not have to constantly carry with you the main identity document. A SIM-card can later be issued a loan, ”explained Anatoly Aksakov.

The idea is supported by representatives of financial organizations. In particular, Alexey Kurzyakov, head of the mobile services department at Binbank, stated the following: “This is primarily not about profit, but about the convenience of such a way of storing and transmitting personal data. After all, the phone, unlike a passport, is always with you, which allows bank customers to avoid unpleasant situations associated with documents forgotten at home. Identification by SIM-card will simplify the process of processing loans, deposits, cards and absolutely any operations in the branches and other points of sale of banking products. ”

The MTS, in turn, believes that a SIM card with a telephone number is a reliable tool for identifying individuals for remote access to financial and public services. An e-signature SIM card can be used to give a subscriber legal action. Accordingly, the range of services provided by mobile operators and other organizations can be significantly expanded.

The viewpoint of colleagues was supported in MegaFon, stating that using a phone number or a sim card as a mobile identifier is a logical step, the next stage in the development of mobile technologies.

It is clear that such an idea is very difficult to implement - you need to take into account a large number of nuances. In particular, when identifying with a SIM card, additional verification services are needed that will eliminate the error and make it possible to avoid fraud. The problem, in particular, is that at the moment SIM-cards are often duplicated by fraudsters. This method is used to capture the control of someone else's email accounts, instant messengers, client-bank accounts.

In order to minimize the risk, you need to strengthen the control of the implementation of the sim. “To minimize this risk, it will be necessary to issue SIM cards under state supervision and with great control. In fact, the issuance of SIM-cards should be carried out by the state, and not by mobile operators, ”said Andrei Gaiko.

As mentioned above, Rosfinmonitoring doubts the feasibility of this initiative. The ministry believes that identifiers should be issued by government agencies that have the authority and access to the necessary information systems that allow you to avoid cases of false identification.

If the SIM is planned to be made an identifier, then it should be understood that the responsibility of the cardholder will increase. Therefore, before introducing such a project, you need to protect citizens from the actions of fraudsters or possible errors of the system itself. The main thing is to tighten the rules for issuing SIM-cards so that fraudsters do not have the opportunity to make a duplicate of SIM cards.