The authorities have begun systematizing IT legislation

The Ministry of Digital Development began an expert discussion of the concept of the Digital Code, which should systematize Russian legislation in the field of IT and telecommunications. The ministry’s concept covers both digital technologies (cloud services, big data, etc.) and communications. Lawyers explain that after adoption, the document must have equal force with other codes in force in the Russian Federation, which will require adjustments to the legislation. Market participants emphasize that many components of the code have not yet been agreed upon, even among themselves, and may cause confusion in the industry.

“Kommersant” got acquainted with the draft concept of the federal law “Digital Code of the Russian Federation”, which on October 25 was sent to members of the “Normative Regulation” working group and candidates for the expert council at the ANO “Digital Economy” (ANO CE; there are 114 organizations on the mailing list). Judging by the letter, the drafter of the document is the Ministry of Digital Development. According to the text of the concept, the code should streamline existing legislation in the field of technology and communications, its effect will extend to government agencies, government and other organizations, as well as to individuals and companies, including those that use government information systems.

The concept proposes to systematize provisions relating to the protection of personal data, develop a legal framework for the use of large volumes of data, highlight the regulation of cloud digital services and non-state services, as well as liability mechanisms for the use of artificial intelligence, including for resolving judicial issues. Its provisions also apply to the communications market: it is proposed to optimize the licensing mechanism, implement automatic distribution and sharing of frequencies through a common pool.

The Ministry of Digital Development is developing a code as part of the draft industry development strategy until 2035 (officially published on August 15). Its authors explained that current legislation in this area is “unsystematic and incomplete.” The head of the Ministry of Digital Development, Maksut Shadayev, said on November 1 that the Digital Code will be adopted no earlier than 2026. ANO TsE reported that “it is premature to talk about specific proposals and comment on work processes.” The Ministry of Digital Development only clarified that the document is “at the discussion stage.”

Currently, legislation in the field of IT and communications is distributed between the Federal Law “On Information” from 2010, the Federal Law “On Communications” from 2003, the Federal Law “On Personal Data” from 2006, as well as a number of by-laws. Many rules were written 10–20 years ago and “are hardly suitable for regulating modern technologies,” notes Vladimir Ozherelyev, head of the intellectual property practice at the DRC law firm. “One of the important goals of code developers is to prevent further fragmentation,” he says.

The Code is a federal law that systematizes norms in a certain industry; in the future, the document will have equal legal force with the Civil or Criminal Codes, Mr. Ozherelyev believes. “Therefore, when adopting the code, it will be necessary to make changes to federal laws in order to eliminate contradictions,” he notes.

Rostelecom believes that “the appearance of the code is necessary and useful for the industry.” Among the problems with legislation in communications are the inefficient use of frequencies, limited entry of new participants into the market due to regulatory restrictions, and outdated legislation in general, which does not keep up with technology, says Georgy Banchikov, CEO of Ingry.Tech. Other operators and IT representatives interviewed by Kommersant declined to comment.

Meanwhile, unofficially, market participants familiar with the text of the concept emphasize that it still contains “many disparate provisions that need to be coordinated with each other.” For example, Kommersant’s interlocutor at one of the large telecom operators draws attention to the fact that when sharing the network, telecom operators will not be able to control it, which will worsen the quality of services. Extending the mechanism for sharing the frequency spectrum to different frequency ranges, Kommersant’s interlocutor claims, will lead to an opaque allocation of frequency resources.

Tatiana Isakova