IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

Why would lawmakers need their own social network? According to Igor Lebedev, deputy speaker of the lower house of parliament – the State Duma – currently there are two hundred forty five thousand deputies of all levels in Russia – and they are not integrated enough. According to the spokesman, the complexity of solving political issues requires professional cooperation – that’s why deputies and experts should have one platform to freely talk to each other without distractions.

Lebedev believes that the upcoming social network for political professionals will not only allow to organize discussions between deputies and experts, but also attract lawmakers from all over Russia. This would engage regional politicians on par with centers, which could in theory streamline the legislative process. Developers are finalizing the system and moderators – yes, this social network will have moderators – will mass-invite deputies as soon as the project goes live. One of the problem spots will be municipal deputies – the lowest legislative level – of whom there are two hundred thousand people in the country.

Read more: Russia updates e-government

The Kremlin is planning to create its own Facebook-style social network, where users with personal accounts will be able to upload content and discuss the issues of the day.

Social networks have been the tool of choice for opposition activists since street demonstrations broke out in December, but the popularity of the internet in Russia means any Chinese-style attempt to assert control from above would be doomed.

So the authorities appear to have been forced to play the socially networked activists at their own game.

Read more: RU: Kremlin launches its own social network

Russians applying for biometric passports for foreign travel will be fingerprinted starting next year, and the prints will be added to a digital record, an order published on the government website said.

The amendment expands authorities' list of biometric data to include prints of two fingers of the passport holder's hands, the order published Wednesday said.

Read more: Russian Passports With Digital Fingerprint Record to Begin Next Year

Do you remember I've concluded yesterday's broadcast by mentioning, yet again, the e-government initiative. It's been a buzzword for years but it appears that it's only finally really kicking off this year. After all, the deadlines are coming - people will now have a legal right to convenient governmental services, how about that. The digitization program was also mentioned on the RIF+KIB conference, of course, with public officials highlighting achievements and plans and experts giving their opinion on how to make the Russian cyberspace a better, safer and a more efficient and orderly place. Deputy head of the Communications and Press Ministry Ilya Massukh admitted that the e-government initiative, the G2C part, the ones citizens actually see and use, and the interagency cooperation system, the G2G part, the "back office" with agencies sending each other records in purely digital format - well, these projects currently eat up around 300 million rubles from the budget. It’s not wasted money, though, as e-government is attracting more citizens. As of now the unified governmental e-services portal gosuslugi.ru has over 2 million registered users who are able to file digital paperwork for 154 federal and 1200 regional and municipal services. As for the interagency cooperation – that’s basically another name for the “one-stop-shop” for governmental services. Previously citizens had to jump through hoops trying to collect paperwork to get another piece of paperwork from a governmental body – the interagency cooperation system means that if one agency has some sort of info on a citizen, it is available to other agencies directly with no more running around from the poor citizen. But of course, it's not all smooth sailing and with the immense expanses of the Motherland to consider, plugging in everyone to the unified state service portal is a hard task.

Read more: E-goverment in Russia: efforts pay off, but problems persist