Moscow City Hall to Monitor Nightclubs Through Surveillance Cameras

Moscow authorities have required certain entertainment venues to connect their surveillance cameras to the Unified Data Storage Center (UDSC), the city’s data processing center that powers the municipal facial recognition system. The UDSC is managed by the Moscow Department of Information Technology, according to a report by Kommersant citing sources among managers of Moscow nightclubs and bars.

Currently, there are 213,000 surveillance cameras operating in the city, with their data being sent to the UDSC, which is accessible by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD). One source clarified that the installation of cameras is being overseen by the prefecture of Moscow’s Central Administrative District. According to this source, venue owners are required to sign a guarantee letter specifying the deadlines for installing the equipment. Another source mentioned that negotiations with city officials have been ongoing for a month, focusing primarily on connecting entrance cameras to the UDSC.

Some venues have already been forced to sign the aforementioned guarantee letter. However, some sources note that club owners may sabotage the project in order to protect their clientele.

In September of last year, Moscow authorities decided to upgrade the facial recognition system: teaching cameras and neural networks to search not only for potential criminals but also their accomplices, as well as to track movement routes. Additionally, the city wanted to give the recognition system, which is used to search for criminals and issue fines, access to users’ profile photos from the mos.ru portal.