The Interior Ministry has so far secretly initiated a draft law which would oblige providers to set up their own investigative operation systems for monitoring users and pay for it all themselves

A new law would enable police to receive access to considerable amounts of information about all mobile telephone owners, with the procedure for this, in breach of the Constitution, being stipulated by the Cabinet of Ministers, not by law

Following statements from the head of the Russian Microsoft office that he’d be happy to divulge Skype encryption codes to the FSB and then embarrassed denials, Andrei Soldatov warns that the FSB has no intention of backing down and wants full access

Ukrainian entrepreneurs and human rights activists warn that according to the new Law on Personal Data Protection, any information about a person can fall under State control, and that this will lead to a greater number of checks of enterprises and, as a result, to an increase in corruption

A Security Service officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, has said that Intertelecom indeed refused to install an automated system of communications interception, but said that it was probably the only company to have done so (and that a criminal case had been found against them over something else)

The main efforts of the new department will be aimed at fighting “inaccurate” coverage of events in the media. According to the statement from the US Defense Department, particular attention will be paid to the Internet and Internet-blogs.

A question mark over whether this marks the end of a scandalously unlawful Order or a game with the mass media being given a main role

New information technology but the same fundamental rights and freedoms: the real challenge now being legal regulation to ensure post-Soviet hankerings for control are given short shrift

A blow for monitoring of telecommunications?

The heroes of the classic film “Irony of fate” every New Year visited a sauna. With the same regularity, the Ukrainian State represented by the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) and the State Committee on Communications before each round of elections tries to “steer the Internet”. After the “cassette scandal” in the year 2000 , attempts were made to introduce “tapping” on Internet providers, to impose “registration” of websites and to “nationalize” the Ukrainian Internet domain.UA. Since then, every new lot of elections has brought with it renewed attempts at “steering”

During the past six months scandals have arisen systematically in Ukraine concerning the collection of information from communication channels of the well-known citizens. We want to remind that the collection of information from communication channels as one of methods of the ODA may be applied only in the cases concerned with grave and especially grave crimes.

Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Mikhail Fradkov approved the Rules of cooperation of communication operators with the empowered state organs realizing the operative-detective activities.

Brief comparative analysis of the law drafts on monitoring and interception of telecommunications and some propositions of the author.

Governments of France, Ireland, Sweden and the Great Britain presented the draft of the Framework decision of the European Union concerning the data storage. The author of the article gives a short review of the draft and the probable consequences of its approval.

The description of the alternative draft created by the Internet Association of Ukraine, Ukrainian Internet-community, Kharkov group for human rights protection and the Ukrainian Union of entrepreneurs and businessmen.

(Report at the public hearings of the draft of the Law of Ukraine “On the monitoring of telecommunications”, Kyiv, 26 November 2003)