Restrictions on digital human rights to counter terrorism

Abstract

Introduction. Russian civil legislation takes into account innovations in information exchange by fixing the concept of digital rights, while giving them an exclusively private legal understanding. The modern doctrine proceeds from the fact that development of digital technologies has also significantly influenced the concept of fundamental human rights. Continuation of this vision is the emergence of digital rights in the public sphere. This actualizes the analysis of their possible limitations in order to counter terrorism. Theoretical analysis. The research reveals the consequences of the transfer of a significant amount of social relations to digital format. At the same time, while the general discourse of discussions stems from the principle of “normative equivalence” between “offline” and “online” (which does not require fundamental changes in law), the experience of the spread of digital technologies shows that it increasingly faces systemic failures. The authors indicate the difficulties with the definition of digital rights and their regulatory consolidation (by analyzing the regulations of the European Union). Empirical analysis. Based on the identified characteristics of digital communications, the paper presents the models for countering terrorist threats in modern cyberspace. The features of the legislative support of the Chinese model of the “Golden Shield”, based on the principles of digital sovereignty (in particular, the Law of the People’s Republic of China “On Data Security”), are shown. The authors highlight the features of imposing restrictions on the right to digital communication for persons suspected of involvement in terrorist activities (in particular, on the basis of the Anti-Terrorism and Border Security Act adopted in 2019 in the UK) and consider other foreign experience in countering terrorist threats in the digital sphere. Results. The necessity of taking into account the technological features of information exchange in the digital space is demonstrated. This has a significant impact on the emergence of new measures to counter terrorism. Foreign experience testifies to the expansion of the list of operational and search measures, the list of elements of crimes of a terrorist nature.

Keywords

• digital rights
• digitalization
• restrictions
• human rights
• terrorism
• cybercrime
• counteraction