Ukrainian Internet regulation in progress

The National Commission for the protection of public morals, which de facto is the main state censor, has developed a draft law "On changes in the law on the protection of public morals." In the near future it will be submitted to the Verkhovna Rada. The most resonant part of the draft law for the moment is the part which requires Internet Service Providers during no later than one day to restrict access to Internet resources, which are defined as harmful by the Commission. In addition, the document requires internet providers to urgently provide the law enforcement authorities with information about the identity of the user which disseminates information found by the members of Commission to be "harmful to public morality”.

The document has not yet passed its first reading, but ISPs and human rights activists advocate against its adoption, believing that, if adopted, this norm will legalize censorship in the Ukrainian Internet.

This is not the first attempt of National Commission to restrict the freedom on the web. Thus, in autumn 2009 the bill on combating the spread of child pornography was passed for Parliament consideration. This bill was a real shock among the users of the Internet, as well as internet providers. The fact is that the first version of the document contained a rule requiring operators to take measures to restrict its clients’ access to the web resources through which the spread of illegal content is being done, and providers were instructed to store information about all sites visited by their customers. In case of violation of legislation by the client, including the proliferation of pornographic content, providers were required to inform law enforcement authorities. The Internet Association of Ukraine, which includes most of the domestic Internet service providers, has made legislators to put off these dubious standards from the final version of the bill this year.

To avoid further misunderstanding of this legal norm Ministry of Justice gave its interpretation. Recall that changes in the law stipulate that operators and telecommunications providers must maintain and provide information about its subscriber connections in the manner prescribed by law.

Information about the consumer and the telecommunications services that he has received may be provided to law enforcement agencies only in accordance with the law. Ministry of Justice stresses that providing such information without the person's consent is possible only in cases of criminal investigation or implementation of operational and investigative activities.

"Thus, the legislation provides for the right of person who conducts the inquiry, investigator, prosecutor and court to demand from enterprises, institutions, officials and citizens presenting objects and documents only in the case of criminal proceedings or the operational and investigative need, and if these objects and documents may help to get some actual data. In other cases, this information may be distributed only under the written consent of the consumer "- this is how the conclusion is formulated in the clarification of Ministry of Justice.

But again, opponents of this norm claim that the problem is not in how is formulated the way in which personal information of the user could be provided to law enforcement agencies, but rather in the very fact that this information will be collected. People believe that this fact can make it possible to prosecute bloggers for their active oppositional attitude.