site.btaCabinet Adopts Amendments to Ministry of Interior Act

The Council of Ministers approved a draft law amending and supplementing the Ministry of Interior Act. The motivation for the legislative changes is the requirements for the implementation of Regulation/EU/2021/784 of the European Parliament (EP) and the European Council (EC) of 29 April 2021 on tackling the dissemination of terrorist content online, which establishes uniform rules to tackle the misuse of hosting services for the dissemination of terrorist content online.

The amendments aim to provide an effective mechanism for quickly removing or blocking access to online terrorist content, without affecting the fundamental principles of freedom of expression and information, including media freedom and pluralism.

As per Regulation/EU/2021/784, the General Directorate for Combating Organised Crime is the body responsible for providing this mechanism. The Directorate will issue a takedown order requiring the hosting service provider to remove or block access to the relevant content in all Member States - an obligation that should be complied with as soon as possible and within one hour of receipt of the order.

The legislation also sets out measures for the implementation of Regulation/EU /2019/817 and Regulation/EU/2019/818 of the EP and the EC, which establish a framework for interoperability between EU information systems in the areas of borders, visas, police and judicial cooperation, asylum and migration.

The expectations are:

• to improve the effectiveness of checks at external borders;
• to prevent illegal migration;
• to achieve a high level of security in Member States;
• to facilitate the identification of persons, including unknown persons;
• to support efforts to combat the use of false identities.

The legislation plans to unify the approach in determining the size of the awards and decorations, which the Ministry of Interior can award to employees.