With a year to go, things may change, but it looks like Russia is coming one more step closer to a better EU integration. Starting from 2013, the immigration services responsible for issuing foreign passports to Russian citizens will start collecting fingerprints to include in the biometric plate in the passport.

Until then the plate will merely reiterate the personal information, i.e. name, DOB, place of residence, marital status, etc. The authorities are aware, though, that the possibilities of the biometric plate as a data storage are endless, hence they want to add the fingerprints.

It is known that this measure is considered by many analysts an attempt to put the citizens under a strict, if barely noticeable, State control.

www.russia-ic.com