Legal Grounds For Restricting Access To Internet Sites In Kazakhstan

Despite the fact that this field is under detailed regulation by the authorized bodies, there occur cases of dispute on the part of the Internet resources owners over the facts of blocking the website access in law enforcement practice, which, in some cases, are resolved in favor of the Internet sites owners.

Relevance of the topic

The current Kazakhstan legislation allows government bodies to block users' access to certain Internet resources (websites) using the Internet from the territory of Kazakhstan.

Both small and large business corporate websites, as well as news, advertising and any other resources owned by foreign or transnational companies can be blocked.

Despite the fact that this field is under detailed regulation by the authorized bodies, there occur cases of dispute on the part of the Internet resources owners over the facts of blocking the website access in law enforcement practice, which, in some cases, are resolved in favor of the Internet sites owners.

As known, there has been developed the state program Digital Kazakhstan in Kazakhstan (2018-2022). It is anticipated that the implementation of this program will result in amounting the share of Internet users in Kazakhstan in 2021 to 81%, and the number of domain names in the KZ zone has already exceeded the number of one hundred thousand units.

Since the Internet consists of a variety of data transmission systems, this publication will consider the issues which are related only to the regulation of restrictive measures to Internet resources/websites access.

Legal regulation

The website is accessible on the Internet under a specific domain name. In accordance with the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan "On "The Law on Informational Support", a domain name is a symbolic (alphanumeric) denomination, formed in accordance with the rules of Internet addressing, corresponding to a specific network address and intended for named access to an Internet object.

The procedure of registering, using and distributing domain names in the Kazakhstan Internet segment is determined in accordance with the Rules of registration, use and distribution of domain names in the Kazakhstan Internet segment, approved by the order of the Minister of Defense and Aerospace Industry of the Republic of Kazakhstan dated March 13, 2018 No. 38/НҚ (hereinafter "Rules").

The authorized body which performs control and cross-sector co-ordination in the field of information security is the Ministry of Defense and...