What will the new version of the law “On information” be like?

The House of Representatives of the Belarusan Parliament works at the introduction of changes to the draft law. What are those planned changes?

In the context of numerous plans and initiatives for development of e-democracy and adoption of new services for the e-government new version of the law “On information, informatization and protection of information” should be marked.

The official web-site of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus informs us about the recent meeting of the working group organized to improve this draft law. During this session the participants considered the text of the draft law that was finalized in first reading and made adjustments aimed at the harmonization of certain regulations.

In addition, a number of questions were discussed. The first one touched upon clear determination of new categories of information, spreading and reporting of which is limited. The participants of the meeting also discussed the expansion of publication sources of public information provided by the state bodies with allowance for the state-of-the-art information sphere. Specification of certain aspects of preparation and holding of a public sitting by the state bodies was also a topic of discussion.

Let us recall that the law “On Information, Informatization and Protection of information” was adopted not so long ago, in 2007, and it regulates social relations observed in cases of: exercising the right to search, transmission, receipt, storage, processing, use, distributing and provision of information, including informational resources; creation and usage of informational technologies, informational systems and networks (hereinafter referred to as informational technologies, systems and networks); rendering informational services; organizing and ensuring protection of information. It is no wonder that the law had to be revised soon, as swift development of the information society requires that legislation is adapted to the new “digital” conditions.

It is important to realize that well-thought-out law dealing with information access and personal data protection is a basis for the further development both for the e-government as well as other services dealing with e-commerce, insured transparency and free access to information and proper protection of personal data.

Will the new version eliminate the errors and gaps of the current legislation? How substantial are the suggested changes? The experts of Lawtrend will give answers to these questions as soon as the new version of the Law "On Information, Informatization and Protection of information" becomes available.