Ukraine

[UA] Information security doctrine approved

IRIS 2017-4:1/33

Andrei Richter

Comenius University (Bratislava)

The Information Security Doctrine of Ukraine (Доктрина інформаційної безпеки України) was approved by the Decree of the President of Ukraine on 25 February 2017 following the relevant decision of the Council of National Security and Defence of Ukraine (RNBU) of 29 December 2016.

It is stipulated that the aim of the Information Security Doctrine is to create preconditions for the development of Ukraine’s information potential in order to avoid negative influences and counteract the on-going hybrid aggression targeted at the country.

With respect to the media and information field, the Doctrine envisions inter alia the following steps:

- Stimulating the national production of audiovisual content, in particular by establishing systems of quotas and conducting tenders for state grants, thus establishing a system of state support for the production of national audiovisual products;

- Enabling the Public Television and Radio of Ukraine to function, in particular through appropriate funding;

- Establishing community broadcasting;

- Developing legal instruments to enable access to information;

- Developing support for media self-regulation on the basis of social responsibility;

- Increasing media literacy in society and facilitating professional instruction;

- Replacing analogue broadcasting with digital and online broadcasting throughout the Ukraine and providing everyone with equal opportunities to access information via Internet;

- Disseminating propaganda, in particular through audiovisual media such as public advertising campaigns which focus on the main steps and experience in nation-building, and on the values of freedom, democracy, patriotism, national unity and the protection of Ukraine from internal and external threats.

The Ministry of Information Policy of Ukraine’s main task, as specified in the Doctrine, is to monitor the media and the national segment of Internet in order to detect information prohibited for dissemination in Ukraine, as well as to develop “strategic narratives” and methods for their dissemination.

The draft Doctrine was reviewed in 2015 by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media and raised a set of concerns.