Belarus

[BY] Information Law Adopted

IRIS 2009-1:1/12

Andrei Richter

Comenius University (Bratislava)

The bill of the Republic of Belarus “On Information, Informatization and Protection of Information” was introduced by the Council of Ministers of Belarus in 2007, adopted by the parliament and signed by the President on 10 November 2008. It comes into force in May 2009.

It will replace the law “On Informatization”, passed on 6 September 1995.

The statute divides all information into “fully accessible” and “restricted” (such as professional and state secrets) (Art. 15-17); and regulates relations in the sphere of information exchanges. It provides for the establishment of a State Register of Information Resources (Chapter V) and State Register of Information Systems (Chapter VI), the latter to involve mandatory registration of all private systems. It speaks at length on defense of information networks and in particular on protection of personal information.

The statute fails to make substantive improvements in the regulation of information exchanges to the law “On Informatization”. Moreover, because of the breadth of its scope, the ambiguity of a number of its provisions and its effects on citizens’ information rights, the statute introduced several elements of potential concern and has been criticised by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media.


References


  • Об информации, информатизации и защите информации
  • Statute of the Republic of Belarus “On Information, Informatization and Protection of Information”

This article has been published in IRIS Legal Observations of the European Audiovisual Observatory.