"Law 404" is not as terrible as it is painted
On January 20, the President of Ukraine signed the Law “On Amendments and Additions to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine Concerning Countering the Dissemination of Child Pornography”, which came into force on February 9 after it was published in the Golos Ukrainy newspaper. This is the result of many months of struggle for common sense.
Correspondents of “The Domain Times” decided to understand the real meaning of the provisions of the so-called law “404”, as well as to track changes in various versions of the draft law No. “3271”, which caused a stir in the Internet community of Ukraine.
It all began on October 22, when the Verkhovna Rada adopted the draft law No. 3271, which immediately caused a violent reaction from the Internet to the public, which began to suspect its creators of wanting to establish total surveillance of users of the uanet. The law was immediately called the “Law 404”. Firstly, because 404 deputies voted for the bill in the first reading, and secondly, 404 is a server error “page not found”.
Naturally, Internet access providers actively opposed the changes. In particular, the Internet Association of Ukraine sent a letter to the leadership of the Verkhovna Rada (BP) with a request to support the edits prepared by it for the second reading of the draft law No. 3271 on countering the spread of child pornography and rejecting the second reading of the draft law No. 1340.
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The main problem was that the version of the bill prepared for the first and even second readings did not withstand any criticism. Some terms mentioned in it are not written out at all in the legislation of Ukraine. For example, one of the amendments to the bill obliged consumers of telecommunications services to “inform telecommunications providers about information found in information and telecommunication systems, including the Internet, related to violence, pornography, violation of intellectual property rights”. But this amendment was not accepted. Because, the legislation of Ukraine establishes responsibility only for withholding grave and very grave crimes. It, the legislation, imposes the functions of providing law enforcement functions (yes, that’s right, it’s not a tautology) to the law enforcement agencies, and not the communications providers. And thirdly, the imposition of certain obligations on the consumer without determining liability for failure to fulfill these obligations does not create the corresponding legal consequences.
Another problematic amendment obliged communications providers to “store information about all of their client’s connections to resources that are accessible by the specified provider.” In addition, "In case of a violation by the client of the legislation of Ukraine, including the distribution of products of a pornographic nature with the use of children, telecommunications providers are obliged to inform law enforcement agencies." In other words, providers wanted to be obliged to store all information about the presence of any of their users on the Internet. Website addresses, IP addresses, referrals made by users — providers would have to store all this (for an indefinite period of time).
And this amendment was curtailed to: "operators, telecommunication providers store and provide information about the connections of their subscriber in the manner prescribed by law." So now the latest version of the project (from 4.12.09) part 2 of art. 39 of the law on telecommunications. And there are no contradictions with the current Ukrainian legislation. The second part of Article 32 of the Constitution of Ukraine allows for the collection, storage, use and dissemination of confidential information about a person without his consent in cases specified by law in the interests of national security, economic well-being and human rights.
It is also important that now the restriction of subscribers to resources is possible only by a court decision. Earlier, in previous readings of the law (or rather, draft law No. 3271), access restrictions could be applied upon the first request of law enforcement agencies. And special evidence that this particular user is seeking access to child pornography, was not required.
It was also decided that the distribution of child pornography will be punished with imprisonment from five to ten years. Naturally, with the confiscation of both the product itself and the equipment with which it was manufactured.
In general, the adopted “Law 404” in its present form really ceased to pose a threat (at least explicit) to the rights and freedoms of law-abiding citizens of Ukraine.
As a bonus, we present a table (in Ukrainian) comparing the amendments to the draft law No. 3271 in all three readings + the current version of the Law.
Correspondents of “The Domain Times” decided to understand the real meaning of the provisions of the so-called law “404”, as well as to track changes in various versions of the draft law No. “3271”, which caused a stir in the Internet community of Ukraine.
It all began on October 22, when the Verkhovna Rada adopted the draft law No. 3271, which immediately caused a violent reaction from the Internet to the public, which began to suspect its creators of wanting to establish total surveillance of users of the uanet. The law was immediately called the “Law 404”. Firstly, because 404 deputies voted for the bill in the first reading, and secondly, 404 is a server error “page not found”.
Naturally, Internet access providers actively opposed the changes. In particular, the Internet Association of Ukraine sent a letter to the leadership of the Verkhovna Rada (BP) with a request to support the edits prepared by it for the second reading of the draft law No. 3271 on countering the spread of child pornography and rejecting the second reading of the draft law No. 1340.
')
The main problem was that the version of the bill prepared for the first and even second readings did not withstand any criticism. Some terms mentioned in it are not written out at all in the legislation of Ukraine. For example, one of the amendments to the bill obliged consumers of telecommunications services to “inform telecommunications providers about information found in information and telecommunication systems, including the Internet, related to violence, pornography, violation of intellectual property rights”. But this amendment was not accepted. Because, the legislation of Ukraine establishes responsibility only for withholding grave and very grave crimes. It, the legislation, imposes the functions of providing law enforcement functions (yes, that’s right, it’s not a tautology) to the law enforcement agencies, and not the communications providers. And thirdly, the imposition of certain obligations on the consumer without determining liability for failure to fulfill these obligations does not create the corresponding legal consequences.
Another problematic amendment obliged communications providers to “store information about all of their client’s connections to resources that are accessible by the specified provider.” In addition, "In case of a violation by the client of the legislation of Ukraine, including the distribution of products of a pornographic nature with the use of children, telecommunications providers are obliged to inform law enforcement agencies." In other words, providers wanted to be obliged to store all information about the presence of any of their users on the Internet. Website addresses, IP addresses, referrals made by users — providers would have to store all this (for an indefinite period of time).
And this amendment was curtailed to: "operators, telecommunication providers store and provide information about the connections of their subscriber in the manner prescribed by law." So now the latest version of the project (from 4.12.09) part 2 of art. 39 of the law on telecommunications. And there are no contradictions with the current Ukrainian legislation. The second part of Article 32 of the Constitution of Ukraine allows for the collection, storage, use and dissemination of confidential information about a person without his consent in cases specified by law in the interests of national security, economic well-being and human rights.
It is also important that now the restriction of subscribers to resources is possible only by a court decision. Earlier, in previous readings of the law (or rather, draft law No. 3271), access restrictions could be applied upon the first request of law enforcement agencies. And special evidence that this particular user is seeking access to child pornography, was not required.
It was also decided that the distribution of child pornography will be punished with imprisonment from five to ten years. Naturally, with the confiscation of both the product itself and the equipment with which it was manufactured.
In general, the adopted “Law 404” in its present form really ceased to pose a threat (at least explicit) to the rights and freedoms of law-abiding citizens of Ukraine.
As a bonus, we present a table (in Ukrainian) comparing the amendments to the draft law No. 3271 in all three readings + the current version of the Law.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/84733/
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