In order to preserve the citizens' personal data, the Social Fund only provides information over the phone using code word verification. Over a million consultations have been provided like that this year.
The majority of the Social Fund clients check their pension accounts and retrieve other information pertaining to the Fund's payments and services using their Gosuslugi account. For convenience, they can also do that via the Social Fund's Unified Call Center. Everyone can ask its operators general questions related to pensions or other social benefits by calling the federal number 8-800-1-00000-1, free of charge.
Operators only provide information concerning personal data after verifying the caller's identity via a personal secret code word. You can get that code if you visit any client office of the Fund in person, regardless of your place of residence. You have to prove your identity and specify the phone number you plan to use for consultations in the future. If you call from another number, operators will ask you to undergo an extra verification, on top of your secret code.
The secret code has two combination variants, each including ten symbols at most. The first variant is a password that may include numbers or characters from the Cyrillic alphabet. The second variant is a pair of question and answer. Clients cannot invent their own questions; they are offered one of the five pre-made options: their mother's maiden name, their favorite food, the name of their pet, their favorite writer or the number of the school they have graduated from, for instance.
Codes were introduced to better identify clients who contact the Social Fund and protect their personal data. Banks now also use code words and passwords. The Fund started using that system back in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic; it proved to be extremely useful as the use of remote services expanded