Internet Association of Ukraine: European approach needed in fighting child pornography

On 22 October the Verkhovna Rada passed as a base draft law No. 3271 from 25.05.2009 “On amendments and additions to some legal acts (on fighting the spread of child pornography)”. The draft law proposes stepping up measures to counter the spread of child pornography, including with the use of the possibilities offered by information and communication technology.

The Internet Association of Ukraine [InAU] shares the concern of the draft law’s authors over cases where minors have been dragged into criminal activities connected with the circulation of child pornography. At the same time, experts in the field of telecommunications and transfer of data point to serious flaws in this draft law due to major areas of non-compliance with norms of European and world legislation in this sphere, as well as the technical impossibility of implementing a number of its provisions. The measures proposed by the draft law will not be able to effectively help to eliminate such crimes.

InAU proposes effective mechanisms for fighting the spread on the Internet of something as shameful as pornography involving minors. These mechanisms have just been drawn up by specialists from the Public Council on Information and Communication Telecommunications which presently unites 24 professional associations and civic organizations in the field, and are reflected in the recommendations to presidential candidates “On urgent measures on developing Ukraine’s information society (cf. www.ict-forum.org.ua). Discussion of the most effective means of fighting cyber-crime on the Internet also took place during a roundtable on 22 October 2009 on legislative regulation of the problems of the information and communications technology field in Ukraine.