Crimes against the information security of minors committed through information and telecommunication networks (including the Internet)

The article analyzes crimes against information security of minors, committed through information and telecommunication networks (including the Internet), infringing upon such rights and interests of children as the right to life, health, sexual integrity, normal sexual, physical development and moral education, honor, and dignity. The increasing number of infringements on the information security of minors leads to the fact that the legislator formulates additional articles in the Criminal Code, or makes changes to the wording of existing ones. The authors note that there is a negative tendency in such activity, when the legislator focuses his activity only on the prompt counteraction to the emerging risks. This approach is not sufficient in order to effectively combat cybercrime, it requires complex cross-sectoral solutions. The information security of a person will not be fully ensured only by supplementing the already existing articles of the criminal law with the qualifying feature “committed through information and telecommunication networks (including the Internet). The types of information crimes, including against the interests of minors, have a steady tendency to increase. Given the importance of the problems posed in the article, it is necessary to talk about the need for a thorough scientific, technical, organizational study of the problems of cybercrimes against minors. The time has come to unify criminal and information legislation. The article concludes that there is a need to introduce into the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation the article “Dissemination of information that is harmful to the health and (or) development of children”.This work was financially supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation under the program to improve the competitiveness of the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University) among the world’s leading research and educational centers for 2016–2020