Key Investigative Actions Related to the Monitoring of Information Transmitted by Means of Telecommunication: Some Problems of Regulation and Law Enforcement in the Light of Modern Crime Control Needs

The social trends of rapid development and widespread introduction of telecommunication technologies could not but influence the transformation of crimes, predetermining the emergence of new types or means of unlawful infringements in the virtual environment. Besides, the means of distance communication are actively used by perpetrators for discussing the preparations for the successful implementation of their criminal intents, predicting the typical reactions of the victims, coordinating measures to conceal the traces of their crimes. All of this testifies to a high evidentiary potential of information transmitted through the telecommunication contacts, which stimulates the research interest in the procedural form of introducing this information in the criminal proceedings. Depending on the choice of legally significant activity, these materials are mainly introduced in the following ways: as a result of investigatory actions specifically aimed at “intercepting” the data on some interaction that took place through means of communication (control and recording of negotiations; obtaining information about connections between subscribers or their devices); as a result of technologically similar operative search activities (telephone tapping, obtaining information from technical communication channels, verification of computer information); as a result of searches, confiscation, other investigatory actions contributing to the confiscation of audio recordings and other materials; as a result of investigatory actions reflecting the identification, recording and researching the facts and manifestations of communication using messengers, channels, sites, etc. While analyzing the abovementioned sources of obtaining evidentiary information from the standpoint of their regulation in the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, the author pays attention to a whole complex of controversial moments, including: a lack of consistency and coordination in naming investigatory actions; illogical definition of the subjective composition of their participants; gaps in the aggregate of significant circumstances; disputable categorization of stages of actual recording of information carried out automatically by specially authorized persons as investigative actions, etc. The author presents recommendations aimed at, firstly, neutralizing the identified problems, gaps, contradictions and, secondly, at unifying norms that regulate work with sources of evidentiary information obtained as a result of monitoring telecommunication contacts, while taking into account modern requirements and needs of crime counteraction.