Faculty of Law

Results of the 4th International Conference ‘Law in the Digital Age’

How is modern IT legislature changing? Is it possible to effectively protect information? How can information security be provided nationally and internationally? These and many other questions were discussed at the 4th International Conference ‘Law in the Digital Age’.

Irina Bogdanovskaya, Head of the HSE Laboratory of Information Law and Chief Editor at LAW. Journal of the Higher School of Economics, told us about the event.

— What is the main idea of the conference?

— The main idea of the event is to bring together lawyers from the IT sphere, including international partners, in order to discuss some topical problems of developing legal regulation in IT, both in Russia and abroad.

— Why are such events important for the legal community?

— The format of the conference brings together both researchers in law and practicing lawyers. They share their experience, formulate an objective legal position, and promote development of the information doctrine.

— This is the fourth time the faculty has organized the conference ‘Law in the Digital Age’. How has it changed over time?

— Returning participants notice that the conference level is growing. A new generation of young law researchers has grown over the lifetime of this event, and they now actively participate in the event and present their papers. The laboratory has undoubtedly proved its value. In addition to this, for the first time at our event an internet conference with the University of Nottingham was organized as part of the session ‘Modern Copyright in the Digital Age’.

The first day of the conference was dedicated to the most pressing problems of information law. Evgeny Salygin, Dean of the Faculty of Law, delivered the opening address, and then Ian Lloyd, Director of the United Kingdom Telecommunications Academy, spoke on ‘Opportunities and Threats in the Digital Age’. T. Tereshenko, A. Silin, G. Dumortier (Belgium), and R. Krupenin spoke on development trends in information legislature.

In the section ‘IT. Business. Law’, business representatives from such companies as Yandex, Megafon, IBM, and Digital October gave examples of the problems faced by entrepreneurs today, as well as the means to overcome them, key trends and actual court practices. P. Sadovsky provided details on the recent changes in Russian legislation, paying special attention to changes in terms of personal data protection. All the participants were worried about one problem, above all others: ‘What can we do if some international services are no longer able to work in Russia?’ These experts believe that it’s too early to make any conclusions and it’s impossible to objectively speculate on the consequences.

The section ‘Information law and information security’ was dedicated to the most pressing problems of information data security, including key trends, international legal practices, the ‘right to know and the right to conceal’, e-government, and the problem of training experts.

The second day of the conference was equally productive. On November 11th, the problems of intellectual property were discussed. V. Kalyagin, senior research fellow at the Laboratory of Information Law, opened the session on contemporary copyright practice. The session came to the conclusion that today there is a dilemma between copyright and the right to open access to information. G. Rizzio, Professor at the University of Salerno (Italy) spoke on the right to be forgotten, based on the Spain vs. Google case.

The participants also discussed the problems of internet pirates and limited access to websites. P. Katkov, President of the non-profit partnership United Rightholders, spoke on copyright protection in the digital environment. The conference concluded with a video conference with the University of Nottingham.

The digital age brings us new challenges and more questions. The reach and influence of technology is growing, and sometimes it is very difficult for legislation to keep pace with the new innovations and trends. Such events help us to keep up with the times, since they combine science and practice. And interaction is essential for detecting problems and finding effective solutions for them.

Students’ interest in these topics is also growing: more and more of them choose topics for their papers in cyberlaw and are keen to attend such events.

Anastasia Sukhareva, 3rd year student; Anastasia Belyakova, 2nd year student.