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Russia’s Interior Ministry may fingerprint foreign citizens on arrival

MOSCOW, June 20. /TASS/. The Russian Interior Ministry has submitted to the State Duma (lower house of parliament) a bill stipulating the fingerprinting of foreign nationals at their points of arrival, for example, at airports, Russian First Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Gorovoy said on Tuesday speaking at the Federation Council (upper house of parliament).

"The Russian Interior Ministry has submitted (to the State Duma) a federal law. Once it is passed, everyone without exception, including Eurasian Union citizens, with any purpose of coming to our territory, will be fingerprinted and photographed during registration, both at their places of residence and at their points of arrival," he said.

Gorovoy noted that work to tighten control over foreigners’ stay in Russia will continue. " "Over the past year, 26,000 foreign citizens, mostly from Central Asian countries who tried to enter Russia using other people’s IDs, have been caught through the use of fingerprinting with the help of the Papillon database," he said.