THE SECRECY OF PHONE CALLS IN THE CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS AND THE LEGISLATION OF UKRAINE ON OPERATIVE INVESTIGATION ACTIVITY

Abstract

There is researched the scientific and regulatory model of protection of secrecy of phone calls in the criminal proceedings and the legislation of Ukraine on operative and investigative activities in the article. There are also revealed the problems of legal regulation in this area, researched the experience of foreign countries, and developed scientifically grounded proposals for improving the current legislation of Ukraine. It is substantiated that the secrecy of phone calls covers not only the content of information transmitted by transport telecommunication networks, but also information about incoming and outgoing connections of a particular subscriber (information about subscriber’s numbers (IP-addresses) with which the connection was made, date, time, total call duration in seconds/ minutes/hours, call type, total number of connections recorded during the specific time period, International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) etc. It is argued it is not necessary to be limited by conducting such procedural action as collecting information from transport telecommunications networks only by investigations of grave crimes or crimes of special gravity. The need for it may appear during the investigation of crimes of medium gravity. There are identified some shortcomings of the current legislation of Ukraine in determining the executor of collection of information from transport telecommunications networks. The ways to eliminate these shortcomings are proposed. There are developed the amendments and additions to the current legislation of Ukraine, according to which the possibility of extrajudicial restriction of the right to secrecy of phone calls should be excluded. In return, the time for immediate consideration by the judge of a permission request for conducting covert investigative (detective) action should be as short as possible. In particular, it can be reduced from six to two hours. It is proposed to provide a procedure for mandatory informing a person about the temporary restriction of his/her constitutional rights in the law of Ukraine “On Operative Investigation Activity”.