By Murad Rakhimov | 2025-06-05

TASHKENT -- In Moscow, a smartphone could soon become a government tracking device.

A law that President Vladimir Putin signed in May orders all foreign citizens in the capital and its surrounding region to download a state-issued app that logs their movements and collects personal data. The official line is "migration control."

Rights advocates see something darker: a digital dragnet that erodes privacy and discriminates by design. Exemptions for minors, diplomats and citizens of Belarus only fuel suspicion that politics, not policy, is driving the choice of whom to monitor.

24/7 monitoring in Moscow

Under the new law, foreign citizens in Moscow and Moscow province must undergo fingerprinting, biometric photography and residential registration to strengthen migration control. Migrants also must notify the Interior Ministry (MVD) within three business days of changing their address.

A pilot project for full digital and biometric registration will launch September 1 in Moscow and run for four years.

The program could expand nationwide if successful, State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin said.

The new smartphone app will track migrants' locations, said Russian ethnologist Sergei Abashin.

Migrants must install the app, carry their phones at all times and regularly report their location.

"How this tracking system will work in practice is unclear: what if someone doesn't have a smartphone, or has two smartphones, and who will monitor a database tracking the movements of millions of people and how," Abashin told Kontur.

The most controversial part of the new law is the requirement that migrants consent to the processing and tracking of their personal data, Alisher Ilkhamov, director of Central Asia Due Diligence in London, told Kontur.

The measure violates international human rights norms, citing Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, he said.

The law could erode basic privacy protections, said Ikhamov.

I see and hear you

Russia launched a tracking list on February 5 to monitor foreigners in the country illegally, but it is adding legal migrants. Hundreds have reported frozen personal and business banking accounts despite holding residence permits or registered businesses, Kommersant reported in March. In its first month, the MVD added 685,000 foreigners to the list.

Meanwhile, St. Petersburg authorities announced plans in February to equip 8,000 closed circuit TV cameras with ethnicity recognition technology as part of the Safe City program.

The measure will help "prevent migrant enclaves" and reduce "social tension," say officials. Critics warn it could create a system that tracks individuals based on appearance. The Kremlin has allocated about 40 million RUB ($504,000) for development.

Russia is reportedly drawing from China's experience with mass surveillance, in which it uses facial recognition and artificial intelligence monitor citizens and assign social credit scores.

A new resource for the Kremlin's military aims

Another purpose exists for harassment of visible minorities, said Ilkhamov.

In reality, laws targeting migrants are meant to bolster the military, said Ilkhamov. Russia faces heavy losses at the front in Ukraine but is avoiding open mobilization to prevent social unrest, he said.

Funding for contract soldier payments, which the Kremlin enlarged to attract signups, is running low, said Ilkhamov.

"A large-scale summer offensive planned by the Russian leadership is on the horizon. There just isn't enough cannon fodder for this offensive," he told Kontur.

In his view, migrant workers are becoming a convenient tool for covertly replenishing troop levels.

They are effectively forced to sign military contracts -- with the carrot of citizenship and the stick of deportation or prosecution.

"So they found a magic wand in the form of migrant workers," said Ilkhamov.

Virtual concentration camp

Over the past two years, the Duma has passed a number of laws that critics say complicate life for migrant workers and raise human rights concerns. The new measures frame migrants as potential criminals, stripping them of privacy and subjecting them to total surveillance, according to Abashin.

"It's a kind of virtual concentration camp," he said.

The system would likely expand to Russian citizens, first targeting groups like so-called foreign agents before reaching the broader population, said Abashin.

"We'll all become 'migrants' and (potential) criminals who must and can be monitored every hour," he warned.

While technical control already exists, he cautioned it could become an ideological norm mandatory for all.

'...creating a Stalinist totalitarian state'

Russia is reviving methods of total control reminiscent of the Stalin era, said Tashkent political scientist Anvar Nazirov. The government is increasingly focused on monitoring society, particularly foreigners, he said.

"Today Russia lives like a besieged fortress. Fear and expectation of a major war in Europe -- all this is pushing the country towards creating a Stalinist totalitarian state," Nazirov told Kontur.

Rather than integrating migrants, the Kremlin is creating new obstacles for them, he said. He attributed the monitoring exemption for Belarusian citizens to the political union between Moscow and Minsk.

"Belarus is a Russian ally, [part of] the Union State. This is the only reason why its citizens were not included in these measures," Nazirov said.

The mandatory mobile app for migrants can be a way to create pretexts for detention, according to Ilkhamov. The system could enable mass arrests for alleged registration violations, leaving migrants vulnerable to authorities, he said. Migrants could become the primary source for replenishing the tattered Russian army.

"If this policy evolves further, then the governments of Central Asian countries will have to think about how much they are willing to tolerate having their citizens are fighting on the front lines in Ukraine," he said.

"After all, this makes them [the governments] de facto participants in the war."