Russia Says Border Biometrics Flagged About 70,000 Barred Foreigners

Biometric checks at Russian border crossing points have identified roughly 70,000 foreign nationals who are barred from entering the country, the interior ministry said, out of about 14 million foreigners processed since the collection programme began.

Ministry spokeswoman Irina Volk said the system identifies travellers by photograph and fingerprints at the crossing point itself. The technology also catches people who left Russia after being issued an entry ban, changed their identifying details and then attempted to return, she said. The figures are the ministry’s own account of the programme, and describe identifications made at the border rather than a count of people physically refused entry.

The programme runs as a formal experiment rather than a permanent regime. Russia began collecting biometrics from foreign arrivals at scale on December 1, 2024, at three Moscow airports, Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky, together with the Mashtakovo road crossing in Orenburg region. Vnukovo airport was added on May 1, 2025. In June the ministry equipped 11 further crossing points, spread across St Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk and Yekaterinburg, and the Altai, Irkutsk, Kurgan, Novosibirsk, Saratov, Orenburg and Omsk regions.

The experiment was originally due to finish at the end of June this year. A government decree signed in April amended the 2024 order that created it and pushed the end date to December 31, 2027, citing the need to keep modernising crossing points and refining the biometric identification software. The same decree set out how a foreign national working as a professional driver on international road haulage routes applies to enter Russia during the experiment where no visa is required.

Digital record keeping is being extended to foreign labour as well. The interior ministry is working with the labour ministry on a digital model for the organised recruitment of foreign workers, built around a register of employers and a register of foreign workers.

Several parallel measures already tie identity records to the movement and activity of foreign nationals inside the country. Foreigners have been required to submit biometric scans to obtain mobile SIM cards, and face-based identification has been spreading through domestic transport, most recently with face-based train boarding on two more routes.

Sources: Vedomosti, ConsultantPlus

–

By the ID Tech Editorial Team