New terms related to cybercrime are being added to Azerbaijani legislation

New terms related to cybercrime are being added to Azerbaijani legislation.

"The Daily Baku" reports that amendments to the Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes (CPM) are being proposed in this regard.

According to the draft, which was discussed at today's meeting of the Committee on Legal Policy and State Building of the Milli Majlis, the main goal is to respond to new challenges in the fight against cybercrime, eliminate existing gaps in the legislation, as well as fully integrate the requirements of international treaties in the relevant field into the domestic legal system.

The draft law replaces outdated expressions with modern terms in accordance with technological progress. Thus, in accordance with the requirements of the UN Convention on Cybercrime, the expression "computer system" in the legislation is replaced by the terms "ICT system", and "computer data" is replaced by the terms "electronic data".

This ensures the inclusion of all modern tools, from smartphones to cloud infrastructure, within the scope of legal regulation. At the same time, new legal concepts such as "traffic data", "subscriber data", "content data" and "service provider" are included in the legislation.

The amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code put the process of collecting electronic evidence into a full legal framework. This includes determining the rules for obtaining, protecting and procedural formalization of electronic data, clarifying the legal bases and limits of inspection, search and seizure of ICT systems. These changes will serve to increase the reliability, admissibility and transparency of the assessment of electronic evidence in court.

In addition, according to the draft, new articles such as "Electronic conduct of pre-trial proceedings" and "Electronic conduct of court proceedings" are included in the CPC, which provides for detailed regulation of these issues. The text of the currently existing article "Electronic conduct of criminal proceedings" has been expanded and presented in a new version. Also, the mechanism for document circulation between the court and the prosecutor's office through the "Electronic Court" and "Electronic Prosecutor's Office" systems, with enhanced electronic signatures, is established.

It was reported that during the preparation of the project, the legislative experience of countries such as Germany, the USA, Turkey, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Uzbekistan was closely studied.