Russian prosecutor general counts on Poseidon system to help expose corruption among civil servants

MOSCOW. Oct 26 (Interfax) - The prosecutor's offices are actively involved in the implementation of Poseidon, an automated system that was developed in Russia to help identify corrupt officials among civil servants, Russian Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov said.

"This program has access to the databases of special agencies, open sources of information, analyzes them, thus facilitating the identification of law violations by a particular official," Krasnov said, speaking via videoconference on Wednesday at a meeting of the Interstate Anti-Corruption Council, which includes the Commonwealth of Independent States countries.

He noted that in the modern world, "criminal threats are transforming as rapidly as new technologies, and ways of circumventing the law and hiding online behind anonymous profiles are expanding." "And so the fight against corruption will be more efficient with the introduction of new IT solutions, including those based on artificial intelligence," Krasnov said.

On April 25, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree approving the regulations on the Poseidon state information system for combating corruption.

Under the decree, the Poseidon system was created for information and analytical support of activities of the state authorities "to prevent corruption and other offenses, including the analysis and verification of compliance with restrictions, bans and requirements imposed to counter corruption by persons subject to such restrictions, bans and requirements, using information and communication technologies." In accordance with the document, the coordinator of the system is the Russian Presidential Executive Office and the operator is the Russian Federal Guard Service.

The Kommersant newspaper reported on April 29 that the Presidential Executive Office will receive an information super-system that will make it possible to identify corrupt officials. "As the newspaper found out, a prototype of the system is already operational, although so far most officials have had to submit their income and expenditure statements in paper form. The new Poseidon state information system will not only ease this process, but will also allow for resolving more complex tasks, such as monitoring the receipt of gifts by public officials and possible situations of conflict of interest, as experts have suggested," the publication said.