Ministry of Economic Development Criticizes the “Safe City” Project as Too Costly
The Ministry of Economic Development has criticized the draft law prepared by the Ministry of Emergency Situations (EMERCOM) regarding the “Safe City” system. According to a review obtained by Kommersant, the ministry believes the project is excessively expensive.
The draft law would require regional authorities to implement urban safety systems and connect them to the “Safe City” hardware and software complex (HSC). Currently, this is done on a voluntary basis. The initiative also proposes the creation of a public-law company, “Safe City,” which would serve as the central control body for the project.
The HSC is intended to integrate municipal and private security systems, such as facial recognition, traffic analysis cameras, and smoke detectors. The goal is to reduce the number of emergencies and related fatalities by 25% by 2030, as well as to decrease annual damages from emergencies by 10 billion rubles.
According to EMERCOM, implementing the HSC project could cost the federal budget 97 billion rubles. The Ministry of Economic Development’s review notes that, if the law is enacted, private businesses could face “very significant” expenses. For example, even with an existing data transmission network, Russian Railways (RZD) would need to spend at least 2.5 million rubles per train station in 2021 to purchase equipment for connecting surveillance systems to external data storage and processing resources. The cost of leasing a communication channel for a station in a city would be 1.1 million rubles. Thus, the total one-time cost to connect all 890 RZD stations to prepared communication networks could exceed 2.2 billion rubles, with annual leasing costs around 1 billion rubles. Regional expenses could also be substantial.
As an example, the Ministry cited an estimate for the Tula region—1.3 billion rubles, which is not included in the local budget. The regional government clarified that they are developing HSC segments and have proposed federal co-financing to the Ministry of Economic Development. The review also points out that the draft law does not specify the limits of access for the “Safe City” system operator to the IT infrastructure of private companies, which could lead to the seizure of commercially sensitive data.
Oksana Yakimyuk, chief designer of the “Safe City” HSC, disagrees, stating that the costs for companies and local authorities to connect to the system are “not astronomical.” She argues, “Integrating various security systems with a unified federal platform will allow for faster access to information about crisis situations and, therefore, quicker response and resolution.” According to her, information is currently “extremely difficult to access,” which affects risk assessment and resource planning for emergency response.
Alexander Rozhkov, Director of Products and Technologies at the T1 Group, believes that the scale of the project and the varying levels of readiness in regional and municipal systems are the two main factors that will significantly impact integration costs. “Connecting commercial video surveillance and security systems will be especially challenging,” he notes. While government systems are regulated to some extent due to state contracts, commercial projects may lack such data.
In late November of last year, the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) also criticized the “Safe City” draft law. The MVD expressed concerns about the potential monopolization of the urban security equipment market and noted that the proposed public-law company could monitor the activities of executive authorities in general, and the MVD in particular. At the same time, Alexander Khinshtein, head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, called the creation of the public-law company an “objective advantage,” as it would introduce an external regulator capable of influencing all participants and overseeing the project nationwide. According to Khinshtein, given all the necessary amendments, EMERCOM is unlikely to submit the draft law to the State Duma before the end of the autumn session.