The right to access the Internet

Yesterday, Aleksandr Feldman, a member of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, registered the draft law “On guaranteeing the right of physical persons to access the Internet”. This draft law suggests that the right of access to the Internet to basic human rights be included. This is the answer that the State Intellectual Property Service of Ukraine received for its initiatives of “anti-piracy law”.

One can only dream of a shorter and laconic law, usually it is dozens of pages of text with a bunch of edits and loopholes for those who lobby for the law. In this case, the bill came down to three points:

1. An individual has the right to access the Internet.

2. The right of an individual to access the Internet cannot be limited.

3. Restricting access to certain data that is stored on the Internet is possible only on the basis of a court decision on the illegality of such data.



In the explanatory note to the bill, the deputy indicated the following motivation:



"... Today, in Ukraine, access to the Internet is not one that is guaranteed by the state at a level with other human rights. Therefore, situations where access to the Internet may be limited are possible. But by taking access to the Internet to human rights, such restrictions are automatically denied ... "

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"... The draft law proposes to attribute the right of an individual to access to the Internet to personal non-property rights that ensure social life ..."



"... The UN Human Rights Council has confirmed that the same rights that a person possesses in an off-road environment should be protected online, in particular, the right to express thoughts, regardless of frontiers and for any media chosen by a person, in accordance with Articles 19 of the General of the Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Resolution A / HRC / 20 / L.13). In the practice of the European Court of Human Rights, the issue of access to the Internet became a subject of separate study in 2012. The case decision “ Ahmet Yuldi them against Turkey "ECHR (application number 3111/10), it was found that" it is necessary to recognize the right to unimpeded access to the Internet "..."



"... Adoption of the proposed bill will provide free and non-discriminatory access to the Internet, and will not allow restricting citizens' freedom to access the Internet as one of the key freedoms of the modern information community ..."



All this sounds, of course, very beautiful and very correct, but how it will be in practice, let's see. In Ukraine, the existence of some kind of law does not necessarily imply its implementation, and in court you can prohibit anything that would be money. The bill was sent to the relevant committees, we will follow the developments.



Recall, the State Intellectual Property Service of Ukraine three times tried to push through the "anti-piracy law", but all was unsuccessful. The bill provides an opportunity for subjects of copyright and related rights in case of a violation to contact the customer service (provider, telecommunications operator) with a statement of violation, if there is no response from the site owner to the application within 2 days, the service service is obliged to block the site, which in fact allow copyright holders to block content without a court order or other authorized bodies.