1.4. Surveillance of the population

1.4. Surveillance of the population

In an interview with the EUAA, a human rights lawyer noted that the spread of surveillance technologies in Russia has significantly accelerated since the Covid-19 pandemic. The country’s surveillance system has become largely automated due to the widespread use of facial recognition technology and an extensive camera network operating in major cities. According to the source, this technological expansion has been actively supported by the Russian business sector, with banks and transportation companies actively adopting new technologies.96 For example, facial recognition technology is integrated into the Face Pay biometric payment system, which allows passengers to link their photo with their bank and metro cards to pay for travel.97 First launched in Moscow’s underground in October 2021,98 Face Pay was introduced between August 2024 and March 2025 in several other cities, including Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod,99 Yekaterinburg,100 Samara,101 and St. Petersburg.102

The Russian authorities have used closed-circuit television surveillance cameras (CCTV) to identify and detain individuals participating in anti-government protests, as well as journalists covering them.103 On 4 July 2023, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) noted in a case regarding the arrest of a solo protestor identified through social media and CCTV in the Moscow underground that facial-recognition technology installed in Moscow violated Article 8 (right to respect for private life) of the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention.104

In July 2024, the media outlet Eurasianet reported that, according to the Ministry of Digital Development, Russia had more than one million CCTV cameras installed in various cities, including around 230 000 cameras in Moscow, with one third connected to a facial recognition system.105 Several people who attended the funeral of Alexei Navalny on 1 March 2024 were detained in the days following the event, reportedly after being identified through CCTV footage or online videos of the memorial.106

According to a human rights lawyer, surveillance is more extensive in large cities and wealthier regions with the resources to invest in the necessary infrastructure. For instance, the Republic of Tatarstan has long been a leader in adopting surveillance technologies. Along with Moscow, Tatarstan operates the Safe City program, which integrates video surveillance into a unified system, including the cameras installed at the entrances of residential buildings. In contrast, poorer regions of Russia have fewer technological capabilities for surveillance.107 The Safe City program is also operational in St. Petersburg, which has 102 000 CCTV cameras.108 As reported by The Insider, in August 2025, around 50 000 cameras in the city were equipped with an ethnicity recognition function, which the city authorities aim to use to ‘monitor gatherings of immigrants.’109

Russian nationals returning to Russia from abroad reportedly face questioning upon crossing the border.113 As noted by Ivan Pavlov, founder of Department One114 and several other human rights groups, in an interview with the EUAA, individuals returning to Russia ‘are of interest to the special services.’ The source noted that if a person has been away for an extended time, border officials may question them upon arrival at the airport, checking also mobile phones, banking apps, and social media accounts.115 In an interview with EUAA, a representative of independent human rights project OVD-Info116 noted that border guards ‘seem to have some kind of databases and lists,’ but OVD-Info does not have information about their content. The source further noted several potential ‘risk factors’, such as holding Ukrainian citizenship or having an activist background. They added that some criminal cases seem to have been initiated after officials inspected individual’s mobile phone at the border – for instance, when financial transactions to funds possible associated with Ukraine were discovered.117