Law note · Russia
Federal Law No. 152-FZ, Articles 10-11, Special Categories and the Biometric Data Definition
Article 10 of 152-FZ names special categories, race and ethnicity, political opinion, religious or philosophical belief, health, sex life, and criminal record data, requiring written consent or a statutory exception. Article 11 separately defines "biometric personal data" as information characterizing a person's physiological and biological features on the basis of which their identity can be established, used by the operator for that purpose.
Confirmed by direct crawler fetch of the article's own text: the definition is entirely general and technology-neutral. It carries no illustrative list of modalities at all, no mention of facial images, voice recordings, fingerprints, or DNA anywhere in the article; an earlier draft of this summary claimed such a list and that claim did not survive a primary-text check.
Written consent is required for biometric processing, and provision of biometric data cannot be made mandatory, except where Article 11(2)'s statutory exceptions apply. `excludes_recording_derived` is recorded false on that same general wording: the definition does not exclude an identifier derived from a photograph, video, or audio recording, it simply never names any modality, recording-derived or otherwise, so nothing in the text carves one out.
What it asks of an app
- Obtain written consent before processing biometric personal data of a person in Russia, including an identifier such as a facial image or voice recording that would fall under Article 11's general definition, unless a narrow Article 11(2) statutory exception applies.
- Never make provision of biometric data a condition of service to a person in Russia, except where a separate federal law affirmatively mandates identification.
When LexLint raises it
Declared activities: processes_biometrics, processes_voice, high_risk_decisions