CSTO PA Executive Secretary made a speech at Infoforum’s 2020 international conference Future of Cybersecurity. Professional Viewpoint

“Amid globalization, technological progress and growing current common challenges, the issue of information security remains supremely important to the CSTO Member States, while its achievement has become an integral task for protection of national sovereignty,” said Sergei Pospelov, Executive Secretary of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, at Infoforum’s 2020 international conference Future of Cybersecurity. Professional Viewpoint.
At the same time, CSTO PA Executive Secretary believes that further integration of the allied countries in defence, economic and other spheres is inevitably associated with the creation of a common digital domain to achieve shared military and political goals.
At this stage, the role of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly is to be proactive and create the conditions for approximation and harmonization of the legal systems of the Organization’s Member States.
The aim of legal cooperation between parliamentarians and specialized bodies is crisis response, neutralization of and protection from destructive information action against critical pieces of state, military, economic and social infrastructure, as well as regulation of the use of artificial intelligence, driverless vehicles, electronic workflow and other formats of digital interaction.
The mechanism of model legislation and the resulting model laws, recommendations and other enactments whose provisions are incorporated by the CSTO Member States are used for this purpose.
Since its establishment in 2008, the Parliamentary Assembly has developed, approved and sent to the CSTO States’ parliaments two model laws and six recommendations governing information security.
At present, the Parliamentary Assembly continues to work on the draft model law On Information Security; the Concept Action Plan and Toolbox to Counter Cyber Challenges and Threats; Recommendations on Regulation of Virtual Currency Circulation (to counteract the spread of cryptocurrencies and other electronic surrogates of payment means that undermine (destroy) national financial systems).
Through the active participation of national bodies, the issue of development of the CSTO legal framework to achieve information security was reflected in the draft 2021–2025 Action Plan of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization on Approximation and Harmonization of National Legislation of the CSTO Member States.
The document is supposed to include the CSTO draft model laws On Ensuring Protection of Critically Important Information Infrastructure; On Security of Electronic Document Management and Electronic Document Archives; On Counteraction of Crypto Crime (Offences Committed Against (Using) Distributed Ledger Products); as well as eight draft recommendations, in particular, on the formation of general principles of development of national legislation regulating accumulation and use of big data to ensure national security, and others:
– on harmonization of the CSTO Member States’ legislation governing protection of confidential information in public authorities;
–  on the formation of CSTO Member States’ common principles for the development of national legislation governing the design of artificial intelligence and robotics for national security;
– on harmonization of the CSTO Member States’ legislation on digital signatures for national security purposes;
– on administrative offences in the CSTO Member States as part of establishing a liability system for violation of confidential-information laws.
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