The government announced the transfer of biometric data of 9.5 million foreigners

9.5 million foreigners have already submitted biometric data in Russia. This was announced on February 25 by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, speaking in the State Duma with a report on the work of the government for 2025.

"We have passed biometrics — attention, colleagues — 9.5 million foreigners," he said.

Mishustin also reported on a serious strengthening of work in the field of migration policy. According to him, the government, with the support of the State Duma, has tightened the requirements for exams in the Russian language, introduced testing for migrant children before admission to schools, and also supported projects on medical examination of foreigners.

The Prime Minister noted that Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council and chairman of the United Russia party, had assisted the government in this work. In addition, Mishustin announced a new mechanism: the recruitment of migrants will be carried out abroad, while foreigners will be assigned to a specific employer. He also provided data on law enforcement practice. In 2025, 72,000 foreigners who violated Russian law were expelled from the country.

Mishustin recalled the launch of the register of controlled persons, which includes those who are in Russia illegally.

"There are about 840 thousand of them, as of February 6, this was the figure that we checked," he said.

In turn, Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin, commenting on the situation during the plenary session, said that the legislative framework for countering illegal migration in Russia has already been formed.

"We started in a situation of misunderstanding, to put it mildly. Now, colleagues, we can already say that the legal framework for combating illegal migration has been formed," Volodin said.

He noted that 22 laws have been adopted in this area, 21 of which have already entered into force.

Guest entrance: Russia will introduce a digital migrant profile

It will help to control the status of foreigners

In January, it was reported that the authorities planned to develop and amend by June this year to strengthen the responsibility of employers for the employment of illegal migrants. It is specified that representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation and the Federal Security Service (FSB) of the Russian Federation will be engaged in this work, the purpose of which is to reduce the number of persons illegally staying on the territory of the Russian Federation.

It became known about the plans of the Russian government to launch a biometric identification system for foreigners in 2026, and to create an information system for monitoring the movement of foreign citizens in 2027 on December 31, 2025. At that time, it was noted that employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, for whom an open source analysis system would be created, would be given access to international airline ticket booking systems.

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