Passport details are not just a set of numbers, they contain a ton of information encoded. If you correctly decipher and compare the details, suspicious documents will instantly surface. HFLabs products have been verifying client data in banks, insurance, telecoms and other large businesses for 14 years. I’ll tell you how we recognize errors in Russian passports. Now let’s meet our hero, who came to take out a loan.
If you don’t know how to decipher the details, it looks quite solid
Valid or not
To check whether a document is valid, there is an official, open and free service of the Main Directorate of the Migration Service of the Russian Federation. We go in, enter the series (4 digits), the number (the remaining 6 digits) and the captcha, and check.
For example, let’s take a photo of Gerard Depardieu’s passport, which has gone around the entire Internet:
Service response: everything is OK, the passport is not listed as invalid:
The opposite answer would mean that the passport is invalid: for example, it was stolen, and the owner reported it to protect himself.
If the service returns the result “The Main Department of Migration Affairs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation is not currently listed in the electronic records,” this does not mean at all that the passport is fake. It’s just that the data may not have yet been transferred from the territorial authority to the centralized database.
You can also download and manually dig into the database of invalid passports. It is updated daily and is also available on the FMS website (be careful, more than 400 MB in the archive!).
Why citizens may be denied passport exchange
Some sources say that in the Russian Federation in 2021 there are about 60 thousand citizens with invalid passports and these are not errors. Some simply did not show up to update information on a document or change their photo at 45 years old. Others were refused exchange, and this happens too. One of them is citizens who have recently received a passport. After submitting the application for citizenship, it was processed. But later some circumstances about his actions or offenses became clear.
In this case, a decision is made to terminate the document. As a rule, this may be followed by deportation from the country. Another category of refusals is when a person has a document, but he is not listed as a citizen in the registration services. Such cases include criminals. As well as a special category of citizens who need to obtain a residence permit.
We check the department that issued the passport
Passport counterfeiting services on the Internet are a dime a dozen. Many people use them to register on a dating site or on a crypto-exchange, to annoy their exes, to try to get a loan for a passport scan, or to request an advance payment for a product or service.
But often such services do not take into account the details. For example, they “draw” scans of documents issued by non-existent departments.
On the website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs you can find out whether such a department exists. Go in, do a search on the page, and make sure that the division exists. Or doesn't exist. The first two digits in the department code must match the numbers in the department website address:
Passport Series
A good start is to check the serial number of your passport.
It consists of four digits. The first two digits are the OKATO code of the region where the passport form was printed.
The passport series from the example is 40 95
.
According to OKATO, region No. 40 is St. Petersburg. And the place of issue of the passport is the Odintsovo district police department
. Oops, first discrepancy.However, this does not mean that the document is invalid. Sometimes forms from one region are issued in another, I’ll tell you more about this later.
The third and fourth digits of the passport series are the year the form was printed.
Based on the series of the passport in the example, it is clear that the form was printed in 1995.
Sometimes, and not even that rarely, the stated year of printing the form is “younger” than the year the passport was issued.
It looks crazy, I’ll explain now. The fact is that the regions and cities of Russia are completely different. The pace of issuing passports in them is radically different. In Moscow, new documents are issued by the truckload every day; in remote villages, empty forms have been lying around for years.
In large cities, passport forms printed for a year sometimes run out. Then new ones are printed against the future quota. Goznak approves the plan for several years in advance, so the forms are simply released ahead of schedule. Naturally, maintaining the numbering order.
We studied 100,000,000 passports and found a rule: for 98.5% of documents, the issue date falls within the interval from “year of printing of the form - 5 years” to “year of printing of the form + 3 years”. Therefore, our algorithms make a stand if this ratio is violated.
In our example, the year the form was printed coincides with the year the passport was issued. It would seem that everything is fine, but let's not rush.
It is also useful to remember that the modern form was approved in 1997. At the same time, they began to issue passports instead of Soviet ones. Therefore, the number consisting of the third and fourth digits of the series is in the ranges 97–99 or 00–22 (if checked in 2021 and taking into account the fact that the form may be issued three years earlier than expected).
Let's return to the example. The year the form was printed is 1995. Obviously, something is wrong here: in 1995, a form of this type did not exist at all, everyone went with Soviet ones.
We find out the TIN according to the passport data
On the website of the Federal Tax Service you can determine the TIN using passport data. Required fields: full name (middle name may not be present), date of birth, series and number of passport, date of issue.
We take all the data from Depardieu’s passport photo, Google the date of issue, the result:
By the way, when we entered the wrong passport issue date, the service still showed the same TIN.
Verification of non-resident documents
Also particularly popular is the following question: is it possible to check the passport of a person who is not a citizen of Russia (for example, a native of the CIS countries), because the FMS department has no information about him. Therefore, it is impossible to find out, and it is also impossible to find out about foreigners who are passing through the country. At the same time, a large number of countries have their own special Internet resources that help check the validity of their citizens’ passports.
In addition to all this, documents of citizens arriving from other countries most often have security marks. For example, watermarks, inscriptions that are easy to see under ultraviolet light, laminating seals, special firmware and other distinctive features that certify the authenticity of the document. Therefore, it is possible to independently check your passport using the methods outlined above.
Some countries have recently introduced the function of issuing electronic passports, which eliminates the possibility of falsifying an official document.
What else can you do
Submit an official request to the passport office or the authorities of the Main Directorate of Migration Affairs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, indicating the data from the passport. But keep in mind that the Law “On Personal Data” dated July 27, 2006 No. 152-FZ requires the transfer of confidential information only with the consent of citizens. All requests must be official and resolved in accordance with the Administrative Regulations (Order No. 18 of January 20, 2014).
Requests are submitted through the government services website and official department portals, as well as in person or by mail. For example, if you want to clarify your registration information, go to the website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, select “GUVM of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia” from the list, then go to the section “Providing address and reference information” and “Get this government service online.”
After this, you will only need to fill out the form and agree to provide your data to the person about whom you are requesting information. A redirect to the government services website will occur automatically. The response will be sent to the email address you provided and to your personal account in government services.
Method 1
Knowing a person’s cell number, you can most likely figure out his name, namely, find out his first name, patronymic and the first letter of his last name. In this way you can “break through” unknown numbers of calling people.
What to do:
- Open the Sberbank Online application on your smartphone. To do this, you yourself must be connected to Sber (have an account).
- We go to the sections “Payments / Sberbank Client / Telephone”.
- We select payment by phone, enter the phone number of the recipient. Click “next”.
- Enter the transfer amount (for example, 1 ruble). Click “next”.
- The “Transfer Confirmation” page will be displayed with the person’s First Name, Patronymic and the first letter of the person’s last name.
You can also search for a person not only in Sberbank, but also in Sovcombank, Tinkoff-Bank, SDM-BANK . At the moment, Sberbank is cooperating with these banks.
What to do:
- Open the Sberbank Online application on your smartphone. To do this, you yourself must be connected to Sber (have an account).
- We go to the sections “Payments / To a card in another bank / By phone number”.
- Enter the phone number of the recipient. Click “next”.
- Enter the transfer amount (for example, 10 rubles).
- Select a bank and click “next”.
- The “Transfer Confirmation” page with the First Name and the first letter of the person’s last name will be displayed.
This is what the information for Tinkoff Bank looks like:
And sometimes you don’t even need a passport
You can also search by name in open databases:
- on cases and judicial acts;
- based on the texts of court decisions;
- according to decisions of arbitration courts;
- in the file of arbitration cases (cases that are currently in proceedings);
- on the website of the bailiff service in the register of enforcement proceedings (by full name and region);
- based on a database of people suspected of committing crimes.
It would also be a good idea to look into the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ “Wanted” database and check the passport photo with the list of especially dangerous criminals. By the way, you can get 1 million rubles for helping to find especially dangerous criminals.
What are the grounds for invalidating a passport?
A passport is recognized as issued in violation of the established procedure and is subject to confiscation if it (clause 6 of Regulation No. 828
;
clause 2 of the Regulations, approved. By Order of the Federal Migration Service of Russia dated March 11, 2014 No. 178
;
clause 2, part 1, art. 35 of the Federal Law of July 3, 2016 No. 305-FZ
):
• issued on the basis of false information provided by the applicant, or forged documents submitted by the applicant for the issuance or replacement of a passport;
• issued to a person for whom it has been established that he does not have Russian citizenship or who already has a valid passport;
• issued to a person in respect of whom the authorized body canceled the decision to acquire Russian citizenship on the basis of a court ruling establishing the fact of using forged documents or reporting knowingly false information when acquiring Russian citizenship;
• contains information, marks or records not provided for by the legal acts (for example, marks about crossing the state border).
In addition, they are not established normatively, but are used in practice, in particular to resolve the issue of bringing to administrative liability under Art. 19.15 Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, the following grounds for declaring a passport invalid (clauses 7, 12, 15 of Regulation No. 828
;
Question No. 15 in the Review of Judicial Practice of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated March 1, 2006 No. 5
;
Resolution of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated December 29, 2015 No. 71-AD 15-10
;
Decision of the Moscow City Court dated 06/06/2016 in case No. 7-6403/2016
):
1) expiration of the passport due to the citizen reaching the age at which the passport must be replaced;
2) change by the citizen of his full name. and failure to apply for a replacement passport within the prescribed period.
Note! In connection with the coronavirus infection, a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation, the validity of which expires from 02/01/2020 to 07/15/2020 inclusive, is recognized as valid in the territory of the Russian Federation. The procedure and timing of its replacement are determined by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. The possibility of replacing a passport remains in this case (clauses 1, 3 of Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of April 18, 2020 No. 275 “On recognizing as valid certain documents of citizens of the Russian Federation”
;
Methodological recommendations, approved. Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia
).
What does the darknet say?
Naturally, you can find offers to “punch your passport” for the amount of 3-5 thousand rubles. Technically, they can actually extract full passport data by name and region or date of birth from the merged database.
But, firstly, most often this is a divorce , for which there will be no one to file claims against. In addition, the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation has Art. 137 “Violation of privacy”, which establishes liability for the unauthorized use or distribution of someone else’s passport data.
Such actions threaten a fine of 150 thousand to 350 thousand rubles, imprisonment for up to five years, or administrative sanctions. Is it worth becoming an accomplice to a crime? We don't think so.
Secondly, people often talk too much about themselves. You can often find out more from photos on social networks than from passport data. And if you google passport data in the format “full name + city”, “full name + date of birth”, find a person’s classmates and classmates, ask what kind of guy he was... You’ll be surprised how much you can find out.
The main thing is to look carefully and compare. Moreover, this is not prohibited by law, just like requests to open databases.
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