The Digitalisation of Justice: Information Security Aspects

The relevance of this study stems from legislative changes in the field of information protection and cybersecurity within state information resources, which necessitate the adaptation of the current information protection system within the Unified Judicial Information and Telecommunications System to the new legislative requirements. The issue of accountability for digital judicial technologies, as well as the allocation of responsibility during their development, implementation, operation and use, remains a topical and under-researched area. The aim of this article is to identify the specific features of the functioning of the current system for information protection and cybersecurity within the Unified Judicial Information and Telecommunications System, as well as the directions for its modification in light of the latest legislative changes, and to examine the issues of accountability for digital judicial technologies and the allocation of responsibility. The study utilised a combination of general scientific, specialised legal and interdisciplinary methods, which enabled a comprehensive examination of the legal regulation of information protection and cybersecurity within the Unified Judicial Information and Telecommunications System, as well as issues relating to the accountability of digital judicial technologies and the allocation of responsibilities. It has been established that current regulatory requirements regarding information protection and the assurance of cybersecurity within the Unified Judicial Information and Telecommunications System are contained in a large number of regulatory acts, which complicates their practical application and requires additional time to search for, analyse and summarise the relevant regulatory provisions. In this regard, it is proposed to supplement the Regulations on the Unified Judicial Information and Telecommunications System with a separate section entitled ‘Cyber Incident Management’, which will set out the general principles for responding to cyber incidents. Based on actor-network theory and anthropological, systems-based and structural-functional approaches, a model has been developed for the distribution of collective responsibility amongst the entities involved in the development, implementation, operation and use of electronic court services, defining the scope of responsibility for each of them. Promising areas for further research include the development of a targeted security profile for the Unified Judicial Information and Telecommunications System and the formalisation of the proposed model for the distribution of responsibility in legislation.