Object and Subject of Cri¬minal Offenses in the Field of Use of Electronic Computers, Systems and Computer Networks and Telecommunication Networks

Abstract

The article deals with the object and subject matter of computer criminal offenses. The purpose of the article is to study the object and subject matter of computer criminal offenses, to analyze the current state of legal regulation of computer criminal offenses, and to provide suggestions and comments to the legislation.
 It is proved that due to the development of scientific and technological progress at the end of the twentieth century, a new type of social relations in the field of computer information circulation emerged in the State, which were subsequently taken under the protection of criminal law. The information security (cybersecurity) of the state has become one of the components of Ukraine's national security. Unlike other scholars, we believe that the direct object of computer criminal offenses is social relations to ensure the integrity and safety of computer information and the safe operation of information systems. The foundation of an information system is a set of information
 resources in the form of computer information, computer technologies and equipment, as well as related computer infrastructure, including telecommunication networks. Not all computer information requires criminal legal protection and, accordingly, can be the subject of computer criminal offenses, so the legislator should amend the dispositions of Articles XVI of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and replace the term "information” with "information protected by law”. It seems that by limiting the ways of influencing computer information in the law, the legislator has provided opportunities to avoid criminal liability to persons who otherwise cause damage to the owners of computer information.
 The complexity of protecting legal relations in the field of computer information lies not only in the evolution of technologies for its registration and transfer, but also in the evolution of legal relations themselves and the ways of influencing them. The backwardness of the articles of Section XVI of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and the problems of qualification of acts under these articles which arise in modern judicial practice cannot be solved by changing the dispositions of these corpus delicti only.