Subject to the Federal law (the “Law”)1 effective from April 1, 2019, the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation will no longer issue state pension insurance certificates (SNILS) due to abolition of all SNILS paper certificates and plastic cards.
Now all data on the individual personal account of the insured person is kept in electronic form. The individual personal account is available in personal account on the Pension Fund website . Changes introduced by the Law affect the procedure of registration in the insurance system and do not apply to those insured who received a SNILS paper (plastic) certificate at the time so that they can continue using it. Thus, when applying for a job, candidate will be able to present either SNILS in paper (plastic) form or in the form of an electronic document confirming his/her registration in the system of individual (personalized) accounting. If candidate applies for a job for the first time, employer will need to notify territorial body of the Pension Fund about the new employee for the purposes of registration in the system of individual (personalized) accounting.
Abolition of SNILS in paper (plastic) form is one of the measures in overall Government’s efforts to introduce electronic HR documents.
In particular, from 2020 to 2022 the Ministry of Labor intends to continue its 2018 experiment on HR documents digitalization. As of the date of this publication, the draft law on the experiment on HR documents digitalization proposed by the Ministry of labor is at the stage of public discussion (the “Draft law”) .
The main purpose of the Draft law is to develop within an organization some mechanisms of HR document management in electronic form, with no need to duplicate them on paper.
It is expected that about ten organizations will participate in the experiment on a voluntary basis. Final list of participants will be approved by the Government. Meanwhile, the participants of the experiment are offered to determine which documents should be digitalized. Also, the companies will be able to choose the type of electronic signature, except when it is required to use enhanced qualified digital signature only (e.g. at the conclusion of an employment agreement or financial liability agreement). The experiment’s conduct and arrangements for its conduct in the organization will be stated in a collective agreement or agreement with the employee on his/her participation in the experiment. The costs of maintaining HR documents in electronic form, including cost for the employee’s electronic signature, will be borne directly by the employer-participant of the experiment.
1 https://regulation.gov.ru/projects/List/AdvancedSearch#departments=4&npa=88427