MIA and SIS Will Be Able to Request Blocking of Criminal Online Content

The Moldovan parliament has approved in the first reading a draft law on blocking criminal content on the Internet. According to the bill, the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) and the Security and Intelligence Service (SIS) would be empowered to order the termination of access to criminal online content. The document was drafted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the context of implementing the amendments to the Law on Electronic Communications adopted in 2020, as well as in the framework of the implementation of the Convention on Cybercrime ratified in 2009. It should be noted that in 2020 legislative changes were adopted regarding blocking access to criminal content, but it was not clearly defined which bodies had the authority to take such measures. In this regard, the authors of the project propose to give the MIA and the SIS the power to block access to criminal content such as the distribution of child abuse material, pornography or the sale of illegal substances. Another provision of the draft law is to authorize the Ministry of the Interior to order the preservation of computer data prior to criminal prosecution. It is necessary to prevent their disappearance, alteration or deletion, including after the expiry of the legal retention period of the data. The draft amendments to the Law on Preventing and Combating Cybercrime will be considered in the second reading at the plenary session of Parliament. The authors propose that the legislative changes should enter into force three months after publication in the Monitorul oficial.