Recently, news agencies reported Communications Minister Igor Shchegolev as saying that e-mail addresses can serve as an official identification like a passport, a drivers license, or a permanent residential address.
Experts in the industry, however, say that journalists got it wrong. Specialists from Yandex, Russia’s largest search engine with 60% of the market share, believe that what Shchegolev meant is that e-mail will be a prime means of correspondence between the state and the public and a means of access to on-line state services.
“I don’t think that I can just go to some government office and say, “My e-mail is like this, so give me, for example, my tax form or give me my money back,” Elena Kolmanovskaya from Yandex told RT. “But as a kind of address, as a way to send me some news, some things which I need to know, it’s possible.”
Russian authorities plan to place all official documentation on-line in 2015.
First, it will help the government save money by cutting down on paper copies.
Then, as public services in Russia are notoriously long-winded, a new system could make things more streamlined. According to Shchegolev’s estimations, last December Russian citizens wasted 25 million working hours standing in queues to seek public services, reports Interfax.
However, e-government still seems to have a long way to go. E-ticketing came to Russia just two years ago, and on-line banking is still new. As for digital signatures, they have not been implemented yet.
The new system could certainly make things a lot easier for expats, who will be able to receive their property titles on-line and register as a foreigner, which has to be done within three days of arriving in the country.
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Quelle/Source: RT, 10.02.2010
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