The Ministry of Digital Development of Russia intends to introduce a unified user identifier (ID) for all digital platforms to improve the accuracy of audience measurements and data transparency. This was announced by Deputy Minister of Digital Development Bella Cherkesova at a meeting of the Public Council under the Ministry.
According to Cherkesova, the ministry, together with industry companies, is developing new approaches to media measurements and the unification of user data. Russian online cinemas and media market representatives have already joined the discussion. The goal is to create a unified audience accounting system where each user is counted correctly, regardless of the number of devices or platforms from which they access the Internet.
Currently, data on user views and activity is transmitted by Mediascope in an anonymized and encrypted form. As clarified in the press service of the Ministry of Digital Development, Internet resources independently encrypt information before sending it, which completely excludes the possibility of identifying a specific user.
The new ID will be immutable and, according to preliminary plans, linked to a phone number, after which the data will be anonymized. This will eliminate the repeated counting of the same person accessing from different devices and provide advertisers with more accurate analytics.
Vice President of the Association for the Development of Interactive Advertising (ARIR) Alexander Papkov noted that the introduction of a unified identifier will partially solve the problem of data fragmentation, but the key issue remains the secure exchange of information between ecosystems. According to him, without this, communication with users is often duplicated, and the cost of advertising contacts increases.