Prospects for establishing criminal liability for crimes involving the use of identity substitution technologies (Draft Law № 718538-8)

The relevance of the article is determined by the scientific analysis of the bill submitted to the State Duma of Russia on the introduction of criminal liability for the use of personality substitution technology for criminal purposes. The purpose of the study is to formulate the grounds for a critical assessment of the projected criminal law prohibition for the gaps in it. Objectives: to subject the legislative initiative to scientific understanding; identify in the draft law under discussion shortcomings of a substantive and technical-legal nature in the design of norms endowed with a new qualifying feature; formulate an original model of criminal liability for acts committed using deepfake technology to effectively counter them. Methodology. The research methodology is represented by general scientific and private scientific methods of cognition of objective reality. Among them are methods of induction, deduction, analysis, synthesis, as well as system-analytical, formal-legal, formal-logical methods and a method of interpreting legal norms. The results of the study are applied in nature and include the development of recommendations for the law enforcer regarding the revision of the draft norms. An additional result of the study was the systematization of the composition of crimes, the means of which can be the technology of digital cloning of a person's appearance and voice. The author proves the inexpediency of endowing with a qualifying feature of individual corpus delicti, as suggested by the Duma members, and gives arguments in favor of formulating a universal aggravating circumstance with its addition in Art. 63 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Conclusion. The innovations proposed by the creators contain a number of significant flaws. To eliminate them, the conclusions formulated in this work may be in demand. Taking into account the pace of development of artificial intelligence, when cybercriminals have mastered the most advanced technologies for creating digital twins, faking biometric data, it can be assumed that the criminal law reaction of the legislator to new ways of committing crimes using deepfake technology will be belated. The author's model of criminal legal means of influence in relation to encroachments committed through personality substitution seems to be more verified and promising.