Kazakhstan: Facial recognition used in Almaty clinics to prevent fraud
A patient identification system with Face ID technology is being introduced in Almaty healthcare centres.
Why and is it safe?
13.03.2025
Article published on the rus.azattyq.org website.
In Almaty, polyclinics have decided to introduce a patient identification system that uses Face ID, a facial recognition technology. Before an appointment begins, the doctor must turn a video camera towards the patient and only then begin the consultation. This is to verify that a ‘real’ appointment has occurred between the doctor and a patient.
One of the clinics is already using this system of video-recording patients. According to the plan, all clinics in Almaty will be equipped with cameras by the end of the year.
In the Ministry of Health of Kazakhstan, this innovation was necessitated by the prevalence of medical centres deliberately overestimating the number of patient visits in order to receive more money from the state and the Social Health Insurance Fund.
The ‘patient’ may not even be aware that they were seeking medical help. Last year, 46,000 such violations were detected in Kazakhstan, and fines imposed on polyclinics and hospitals proved incapable of solving the problem.
In this regard, the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, has ordered the creation of a unified state medical information system, which will ensure end-to-end control and objectivity of data for all medical organisations that receive state orders. According to the developers, Face ID technologies are just as capable of providing this.
“Yes, the video recording ensures transparency of the appointment,” explains Gaukhar Baimbetova, an expert doctor at Polyclinic No. 4 in Almaty. “It also protects the doctor. Because we have often had complaints that the person did not show up for the appointment, but we get a message saying that the patient was at the doctor’s surgery. We are already seeing the results of this work: since the beginning of the year, there have been no such complaints about false additions of patients or non-existent appointments. None!”
“The introduction of digital technology in healthcare is a step towards improving the quality of healthcare services. The use of Face ID will ensure accurate identification of patients, which is particularly important when prescribing treatment and dispensing outpatient medication,” the Ministry of Health says. “We will continue to work on the digitalisation of primary healthcare to make medical services more accessible and convenient for the residents of the city.”
Not all patients are comfortable with the technological innovations. Many are concerned that their images and other personal data will be leaked and that the files could be used for deepfake technology. There are also those who simply do not want to be filmed: clinics promise to identify them using a six-digit code via the ‘Digital Documents’ service. As cybersecurity experts say, this verification method is more secure than taking a video. Clinics, even if they do not store biometric data themselves, are often poorly protected against cyberattacks.
“We cannot, of course, say that all medical centres have a low level of information security. But medical centres are an industry where the risk of a successful cyberattack is high,” explains cybersecurity expert Alexander Baitov. “Why? Because when we’re talking about public health institutions, their budget and their investment in cybersecurity is minimal. The most they can do is to install antivirus software. And there is a shortage of IT specialists in medical centres.”
