Belarus has approved the standard for financial services and technologies titled «Banking activities. Information security assurance. Digital device fingerprint». As of 1 July, banks are required to have an anti-fraud system in place. This is a system that, based on a specific set of rules and criteria, identifies suspicious activities and fraud, and either halts payments or flags them as high-risk.

As of 1 July, all banks in Belarus are required to comply with new regulations regarding the collection, storage, and analysis of digital device fingerprints. A digital fingerprint is a unique set of parameters (device model, software version, browser settings, geolocation, and others) designed to ensure reliable user identification and to prevent fraud. Upon a user’s first login to the remote banking system, the bank generates and stores a reference digital fingerprint of the user’s device. Fraudsters will not be able to carry out an unauthorized payment transaction by stealing a password or logging into the system by spoofing geolocation. The bank’s anti-fraud system will detect the discrepancy and halt the transaction. Access is blocked until the client confirms that the operation is indeed being performed by them. There is no limit on the number of devices, and multiple reference fingerprints are allowed.

Among the device parameters collected by banks are location data. Banks are required not only to inform users of the remote banking system about the collection of such data but also to obtain their consent.

All digital fingerprint data is stored in encrypted form, is not shared with anyone, and is used exclusively within the anti-fraud system at the time of logging into the bank’s remote banking system.