The mayor of Moscow has admitted that the rollout of a new digital tracking system to enforce its coronavirus lockdown has caused crowding on public transportation, after images surfaced on Russian social media of large lines forming outside subway entrances as police checked passes.
“This morning, due to verification activities conducted by the GUVD [police], queues formed in the metro, something very critical in the current situation,” Sergey Sobyanin said in a statement on Twitter on Wednesday.
The new system officially went into operation Wednesday, requiring Muscovites and residents of the Moscow region to download a QR code so they can move around the Russian capital.
Opposition activists warned the new system will lead to unprecedented government intrusion.
For example, the permit website prompts all users to register at or link their existing page to a government e-portal, which stores user data on traffic fines, utility bills, foreign passports and so on. Users also need to disclose their points of origin and destination, their employer tax identifier, car plate number and upload their IDs.
Daria Besedina and Maxim Katz, local opposition lawmakers who voted against the system, dubbed it a "cyber Gulag" and "digital concentration camp," criticizing the authorities for mixed messaging about the coronavirus.
“I talked with the head of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate and asked them to organize work in such a way that further inspections would not lead to mass crowds of people," Sobyanin, the mayor, said on Twitter.
He added that crowds had lessened and work was resuming at a normal pace.
“In the future it will be necessary to move to automated control,” he said. “We’ll think about how to do this.”
