The bill to amend the legislation and ensure information security and combat crimes involving the use of information technology, which was approved by the Cabinet last week and aroused controversy in society, should be passed by Parliament, but with significant amendments. The bill’s provisions should not be interpretable. These are the conclusions reached by participants in the public debate “Real and nonexistent dangers to the basic human rights generated by the government’s intention to modify information technology regulations” that was staged by IPN News Agency and Radio Moldova.
Director of the Independent Journalism Center Nadine Gogu said in the debate that the bill contains provisions that can be interpreted and this could lead to Internet censorship. “If there are interpretable provisions, we must take steps to eliminate ambiguities so that the implementation conditions are very clear,” she stated.
Jurist of the European People’s Party of Moldova Iulian Rusu said he does not challenge the necessity of protecting the social relations, but he has some questions as to the instruments provided by this bill to the public authorities. “In particular, this refers to the monitoring of electronic communications, especially when it is about violations that pose a smaller social danger,” he stated.
Head of the Law Division of the National Police Inspectorate Sergiu Turcan considers the reaction of civil society to this bill is normal. According to him, the children must be supervised when they use the Internet. “The easiness by which they access the Internet in the Republic of Moldova is very attractive for persons with deviant behavior from other countries, where they do not have access to the Internet so easily. The National Police Inspectorate urges civil society to show social maturity,” he stated.
According to the deputy head of the National Investigations Inspectorate’s Center for Combating Cybercrime Veaceslav Badarau, this bill enables the law enforcement bodies to collect evidence concerning particular crimes. “If the police do not have such instruments, they will be unable to investigate particular types of offenses. This facilitates the police’s struggle against crime,” he said.
Democratic MP Sergiu Sarbu said the objections to this bill will be thoroughly discussed within the parliamentary commissions and in the legislative body so as to improve the draft law. “The objections about the protection of the basic human rights should be taken into consideration before finalizing this bill. We should ignore the financial interests of particular persons,” he stated.
Lawyer of the International Center for Protection and Promotion of Women’s Rights “La Strada” Natalia Bayram said that they support this bill as it will ensure the efficient protection of children against any form of abuse and sexual exploitation. “This draft law brings the amendments needed to ensure efficient investigation,” she noted.
According to the representative of the concern “StarNet” Alexei Muntean, the bill is formulated ambiguously and some of its provisions can be interpreted. “We know that we have captive justice and we should not hope that the legal system will be fair and will analyze things somehow. In this case, the operators are those that will support the whole financial burden. Why do you oblige us to store tens of terabits for each user daily? Enormous investments must be made for the purpose,” said Alexei Muntean.
The bill contains amendments to the penal legislation that exclude the legislative shortcomings in the prevention and combating of cybercrime, in particular online sexual child abuse.
The April 4 debate is the 52nd of the series of debates “Developing political culture by public debates” that are organized with the support of the German Foundation “Hanns Seidel”.
