Rada approves the creation of the Unified Social Information System: what it means for Ukrainians
26 September 14:44
A year later, the Verkhovna Rada passed draft law No. 11377, which is intended to improve the efficiency of social services, modernize outdated databases, and reduce social protection costs. MPs voted in favor of creating a Unified Social Information System, which will include data on all Ukrainians – who they are, what they are, and what they own. And it will be more serious than Diia. What citizens should prepare for, found out
The draft law provides for the creation of a Unified Social Information System (USIS) for the centralized collection, processing and storage of citizens’ data from various state registers. With this system, the state will be able to update data on citizens, which will be used to generate analytical materials and population statistics. In fact, after the introduction of full name, the state will know everything about everyone, as the Unified System will include such registers:
- The Unified State Register of Conscripts, Persons Liable for Military Service and Reservists (Oberig)
- Electronic healthcare system (EHS)
- Demographic register
- Register of vehicles
- Register of individuals – taxpayers
- Automated system of enforcement proceedings
- State Register of Civil Status Acts of Citizens
- State register of real rights to real estate
- State land cadastre
- Unified judicial information and communication system
- Other electronic information resources, etc
“It is planned to merge more than 30 existing registers and databases of the social sphere into the Unified Register. This should simplify the receipt of social benefits and enable citizens to apply for social support anywhere in Ukraine – online or in person,” said Halyna Tretyakova, MP from the Servant of the People party, chair of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Social Policy and Veterans’ Rights.
The government will be able to expand this list of registers at its discretion if more than 30 registers are not enough.
Local authorities are against amalgamation
By the way, the Association of Ukrainian Cities was not happy with this draft law, as it believes that the document provides for the introduction of mandatory provision of social services by executive bodies of village, town and city councils exclusively through the UISCS.
This introduces complete control of the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine over the powers of local governments. Providing social assistance, they will become dependent on the programmatic functions of the UIISS, i.e., on the decisions of the Ministry of Social Policy.
The Association of Ukrainian Cities proposed to MPs to limit the mandatory use of the ministerial electronic system to only those types of social assistance financed from the state budget. After all, local governments already have negative experience with state electronic systems in the field of social protection. In particular, the UISSS has not covered eight types of social benefits and compensations for two years since its launch. If the situation is not corrected, the draft law may block the exercise of the powers of local authorities in the field of social protection and the implementation of local programs.
All information about every Ukrainian in one database
This draft law, submitted by Shmyhal’s Cabinet, was in the Rada for a whole year, and it was adopted exactly 12 months later. It is worth noting that the idea to unify the registers is not new. The Groysman government also planned to implement a mechanism for verifying beneficiaries and subsidies. At that time, the Ministry of Social Policy wanted to identify dishonest recipients of subsidies who concealed additional real estate, large purchases, bank accounts, etc.
Previously, checking a family’s financial status took a lot of time: you had to send numerous requests to different institutions. Now everything will be in one place. And everyone who applies for state aid will have all the information in the palm of their hand.
“This law will create one reliable system instead of many disparate databases. This will ensure effective accounting, protection and fast processing of information, as well as make the process of receiving social assistance more convenient for citizens,” the parliament assures.
To prevent data leakage, as happened with the Diia portal, when 1 million accounts were recently leaked, of which more than 983 thousand belonged to real tax residents of Ukraine, it was decided to use data centers outside Ukraine with mandatory approval of service agreements with the Security Service of Ukraine.
A single register for the elections
Former Minister of Social Policy Andriy Reva believes that the adoption of this bill right now shows not so much that MPs want to improve the lives of Ukrainians as that they are preparing for the elections and creating a unified database of Ukrainians.
“At one time, we were going to combine some functions in the social sphere, for which we created Transparent Offices. But then we were told that it was wrong. And now we have the “right scheme”. And this database will be interesting just before the elections, for which the government is actively preparing. Bills that have been lying in the drawer for a long time are now being actively adopted,” he said in a commentary
[Kommersant] Andriy Reva.
Lawyers are surprised that the register of persons liable for military service, Oberig, has been included in this UISMS and believe that now the property of persons liable for military service or servicemen who are brought to administrative or criminal responsibility can be easily found and, in case of non-payment of a fine, sold.
“Everything is just coming together very well: Oberig, land cadastres, real estate data, the vehicle register, the Unified Judicial Information and Communication System, and the enforcement system will all be in one place. This will facilitate both the search for assets from which fines can be collected and the sale of this property in case of non-payment. In other words, the state will take full control of every Ukrainian in the end,” says lawyer Valentyn Serkov.
Funding and corruption scandal
The new program will be financed from the state budget, international technical assistance, charitable contributions and other sources not prohibited by law.
The cost of development and implementation of new subsystems of the Unified System and modernization of the existing ones was supposed to amount to UAH 562 million in 2024, approximately UAH 682 million in 2025, and about UAH 320 million in 2026. In total, just over USD 1.5 million (with support from WFP and other sources). However, the funds have already been used.
The NABU and the SAPO have served five people with suspicion notices, including former officials of the Ministry of Social Policy, the State Special Communications Service, and the Pension Fund involved in a corrupt software procurement scheme for the Ministry of Social Policy. The losses to the state budget amounted to over UAH 29 million.
First, they stopped an already started informatization project, on which they spent more than USD 950 thousand, to open the way for a controlled company to withdraw money.
Author: Alla Dunina
