The Russian Central Bank says that its CBDC, the digital ruble, “has nothing to do with” state efforts to gather biometric knowledge.
The financial institution started piloting its CBDC simply over a month in the past in 11 cities nationwide.
Russian MPs final 12 months voted in a legislation that permits banks and state businesses to gather biometric knowledge on their shoppers.
This knowledge contains facial scans and fingerprints.
This gave rise to the Unified Biometric System (UBS), which the Kremlin and banks will use as a nationwide digital distant identification platform.
But the 2 initiatives seem to have been conflated by many observers.
And that has given rise to a spate of digital ruble and biometrics-themed fraudsters.
Last month, a number of areas warned that their residents had been targetted with emails and telephone calls from obvious scammers.
Many of those alleged scammers requested potential victims to submit biometric knowledge as a way to convert their money ruble financial savings to CBDC tokens.
Per the state-run TV community Channel One (Pyerviy Kanal), Elvira Nabiullina, the Governor of the Russian Central Bank, stated that the digital ruble “has nothing to do with biometrics.”
Nabiullina added:
“Biometrics and the digital ruble are two projects that are absolutely unrelated to each other. The use of the digital ruble does not involve the mandatory use of biometrics. Both projects – the UBS biometrics submission and the use of the digital ruble – are completely voluntary. This is our principled position on the matter.”
Russian CBDC & Biometric Data Projects Not Linked, Bank Claims
Nabiullina additionally famous that whereas “submitting biometric data” was “a voluntary decision for Russian citizens,” over 50 million individuals had come ahead at hand over their knowledge to date.
The Deputy Head of the Russian Ministry of Digital Development’s Digital Identification Technology Department, Yuri Shabano, claimed that “less than 1%” of individuals had to date “refused” to submit their biometric knowledge.
