The Human Rights Defence Centre “Memorial” is publishing a report by Konstantin Troitskiy, “The State Information Resource ‘Digital Profile of a Foreign National’ and the Shaping of a New Russian Totalitarianism.”
The study shows how the Russian authorities, with the FSB as the primary overseer, are using migrants as a testing ground for technologies of total surveillance over individuals and organizations.
“The State Information Resource ‘Digital Profile of a Foreign National’ and the Shaping of a New Russian Totalitarianism”
Konstantin Troitskiy is an independent analyst who holds a Candidate of Sciences degree in philosophy. Until 2022, he worked at the Ethics Department of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is the author of analytical reports on violations of migrants’ rights for the Civic Assistance Committee and Memorial.
In the late 2010s, the Russian authorities began developing the National Data Management System (NSUD). It was presented as a way to improve the quality of public services, facilitate information exchange between government agencies, and simplify interaction between the state and citizens.
Independent analysis shows that the system has become far more than a convenient service: it has evolved into a testing ground where the authorities trial technologies of total control, predictive repression, and algorithmic management of people. This report provides the first detailed examination of the architecture of pervasive surveillance that Russian security services, government officials, and state corporations are actively constructing.
One of the projects developed within the NSUD framework is a digital profiling system covering Russian citizens, foreign nationals, stateless persons, and legal entities.
The Russian authorities are using migrants as a “pilot” group for testing this profiling system. According to Konstantin Troitskiy, the state is rapidly trialing repressive digital tools on migrants with the aim of later applying this experience to governing society as a whole.
The report focuses on the State Information Resource “Digital Profile of a Foreign National” (GIR TsPIG). Troitskiy examines the history of the system’s development, its architecture, governance mechanisms, and functions in order to understand what the authorities seek to achieve and what kind of future they envision for Russia.
Key findings of the study on the GIR TsPIG
- The system has been years in the making: The GIR TsPIG is not a situational response to a migration crisis or the geopolitical environment. The resource has been developed systematically as part of a megaproject aimed at building an infrastructure of total digital surveillance.
- Control by the security services: The FSB serves as the platform’s primary overseer, while the MVD is its operator. The project’s objectives serve the interests of the Russian elite in consolidating power and eliminating challenges to the regime.
- Total real-time surveillance: The GIR TsPIG is a dynamic digital platform integrating information flows from interagency state systems, agency databases, non-state actors through state systems, and mobile applications. Through the GIR TsPIG, the state can access a person’s geolocation and travel routes, communications, finances, online purchases, health information, and even their circle of contacts.
- AI and a “trustworthiness rating”: Neural networks integrated into the platform conduct predictive analytics. They model risks and assess foreign nationals according to their presumed “trustworthiness” through social scoring—even before any offense has been committed.
- Automation of repression: AI algorithms can automatically restrict the rights of hundreds of thousands of people. The Registry of Controlled Persons (RCP) operates on the basis of the GIR TsPIG: algorithmic systems can block migrants’ bank accounts without a court decision, initiate checks, and trigger expulsion mechanisms.
- Involvement of the non-state sector: The state requires banks, carriers, hotels, telecom operators, and employers of migrants not only to supply data for surveillance but also to act as agents enforcing coercive measures. In some cases, they are also required to compel individuals to provide biometric data.
- The GIR TsPIG is part of a broader system: Digital profiling of foreign nationals is linked to analogous projects targeting Russian citizens and organizations. Together, they form an emerging architecture that enables the state to link information from different areas of life, analyze people’s behavior, and automatically make decisions that directly affect their rights and freedoms.
Konstantin Troitskiy
author of the report
“The example of the GIR TsPIG clearly demonstrates how the Russian authorities use advanced technologies and unrestricted data collection to impose strict control,” says Konstantin Troitskiy, the author of the report.
“The introduction of algorithmic repression, the automation of coercive measures, and the effective elimination of the independence of the non-state sector are shaping the configuration of a new Russian totalitarianism before our eyes.”
