Trust button: NGO accounts will be verified in Russia
New measures will be introduced in Russia to combat fraudsters profiting from charity. Accounts of real non-profit organizations in social networks want to be verified through Gosuslugi. The relevant initiative was adopted by the State Duma in the first reading. The proposed norms will create a new level of trust between charities and citizens, experts say. However, it will take work to inform the public about the innovation. Whether verification will help to cope with the wave of fraud is in the Izvestia article.
Increasing transparency
Vyacheslav Volodin, Chairman of the lower house of parliament, spoke about the consideration of the initiative in the State Duma in his Telegram channel. He noted that Russians often encounter announcements on social media about fundraising published on behalf of charitable foundations and organizations. However, it is quite difficult to verify the accuracy of the posted information.
"Scammers use this by creating fake pages, copying the accounts of real organizations and sending messages on their behalf encouraging them to participate in alleged charity projects," said the speaker of the State Duma.
To solve the problem, the authorities propose verifying the personal pages of non-profit organizations on social networks through "Public Services".
"It is important to protect people from the actions of scammers. By helping others, citizens should be sure that their funds will be directed specifically to good causes, and not into the pockets of criminals," Volodin emphasized.
The bill was submitted to the State Duma last year by a group of deputies led by Olga Zanko, Deputy chairman of the Duma Committee on the Development of Civil Society, Public and Religious Associations. The initiative proposes to supplement the law "On Non-profit Organizations" with an article on the publication of information about the activities of NGOs.
Verification of accounts through Gosuslugi will be mandatory for charitable foundations. Other NGOs can verify the authenticity of their page at will.
The identification of the pages will increase the level of citizens' trust in charity, and it will be easier for NGOs themselves to carry out their activities on social networks, the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation told Izvestia. It will not be necessary to create new pages, the ministry said. It will be enough to confirm the fact of creation through the Gosuslugi portal.
At the same time, the explanatory note to the bill states that, according to VTsIOM, Russians can participate more actively in charity if they are sure that their money will actually go to the needs of non-profit organizations.
However, it is important to take into account that the adoption of the document has its own risks that need to be minimized before the law comes into force. The Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation came to this conclusion during the zero reading. For small NGOs, the identification process can be difficult and costly.
In addition, new procedures may slow down the work of non-profit organizations in the initial stages. Therefore, it is important to set realistic deadlines for the implementation of the system. It is also important to ensure the protection of personal data of NGOs and their representatives during verification.
The Izvestia editorial board sent inquiries to social networks and relevant associations. No responses had been received at the time of publication.
An important tool
Criminal schemes in which attackers create fake pages disguised as well-known charitable foundations have become more common in recent years, says Alexei Govyrin, a member of the State Duma Committee on Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. According to him, it is often impossible to verify the authenticity of such accounts.
"Fraudsters copy the design, borrow texts from real organizations, use other people's photos, and even make transfers with real details, but at the last minute they replace the recipient," the parliamentarian notes.
At the same time, social networks today are a powerful tool for fundraising and helping those in need, recalls Nikita Chaplin, a member of the State Duma Committee on Budget and Taxes. And fraudulent activities in this area must be stopped.
"People who want to help others should be sure that their funds will go to those who really need them, and not into the hands of criminals," the deputy emphasizes.
According to Alexey Govyrin, some social networks offer the possibility of page verification, but there are no uniform standards in this area, which does not allow such a method to be considered a full-fledged guarantee of security.
The law will help combat one of the most common methods of fraud, which creates a page-a copy of the collection of a well-known foundation, which adds the details not of the foundation, but of fraudsters, said Anna Vinogradova, vice president of the charity foundation "Volunteers to help Orphaned Children".
— Unfortunately, there are many other ways to deceive donors. We hope that this law is just one of the steps in the fight against fraud in the field of charity, and it seems to us very important that NGOs themselves be involved in this work," the Izvestia interlocutor emphasizes.
There is still no precise understanding of what criteria the verification procedure will be based on, says Anna Vinogradova.
— It is very likely that we are talking exclusively about formal grounds and the availability of reports from the organization to the Ministry of Justice. These are useful criteria, but they are far from exhaustive, so it's probably too early to say that this bill increases the overall transparency of the sector," the expert draws attention.
Professionalization of NGOs, active training of their employees, active exchange of experience and financing of only evidence-based methods of treatment and rehabilitation can protect Russians from fraud or support for ineffective ways of helping, says Alexandra Babkina, Director of Sustainable Development at Cyana. In addition, fraud prevention can be a request from the society for transparent reporting of NGOs.
An integrated approach
At first glance, verification of NGO pages on social networks does seem like an absolute boon, but this method will not be enough to combat fraud, warns Kirill Marinenko, a lawyer at Dmitry Fomin and Partners Law Firm.
— Systematic work is needed to inform the public that the real charitable foundation and its details must be on the official website on the Internet, whose authenticity has been confirmed by the state. In particular, some kind of visible marking is needed, for the illegal use of which liability will be provided," the lawyer believes. In his opinion, significant results can be achieved only with such an integrated approach.
But it is premature to say that the new rule will complicate the activities of NGOs, Marinenko believes. According to the law, the procedure is notifiable for many organizations.
— If we take a close analogy, we can recall the introduction of the rule on registration in social networks of bloggers with more than 10 thousand subscribers. I was convinced from personal experience that there were no problems with such registration," the expert quotes the comparison.
However, the draft law states that the unified identification system will be used in accordance with the procedure determined by the Government of the Russian Federation. If the Cabinet of Ministers puts forward new requirements for the content of the website, verification may indeed be difficult, the lawyer admits.
Problems may arise if the new algorithms turn out to be too bureaucratic, warns Ilya Rusyaev, managing partner of Rusyaev and Partners, lawyer. In addition, the activities of NGOs will be hampered if the authorities de facto impose a ban on the presence of unverified pages on social networks.
— The non-profit sector in Russia is represented by both large foundations and small associations that operate at the level of local initiatives. The latter often do not have the resources to go through formal procedures in a short time," the expert recalls.
In this regard, in his opinion, at the same time as the implementation of verification, it is necessary to provide reasonable guarantees for NGOs, without creating a critical disparity between organizations that have already been verified and those who, for objective reasons, have not yet passed the procedure.
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