Russian ministry expects to unveil draft Digital Code in mid-2025 - Shadayev

MOSCOW. May 28 (Interfax) - Russia's Digital Development Ministry expects to present the first draft of a Digital Code for regulation of communications and information technology in the middle of 2025 and submit it for discussion in the State Duma by the end of next year, Digital Minister Maksut Shadayev said.

"This is a fundamental matter, very big, difficult, complex. Significantly more demands are being made of the Code. We hope that in the middle of next year we will present the first version. And we hope that by the end of next year we'll be able to already submit [the draft] to the Duma," Shadayev said at the TAdviser SummIT conference on Tuesday.

He said Russia already has a great deal of regulation in the digital sphere, "but it is very fragmented."

"We are constantly correcting and adding to several of our sectoral laws. We agreed to make a separate, large Digital Code as a summary of all legislative regulation that concerns issues of digitalization, development, use of digital technologies, protection of data," Shadayev said.

At the end of last November, the minister said the Digital Code would be ready in 2026 at the earliest.

The development of a Digital Code to regulate relations in communications and information and communication technologies is part of the Strategy for the Development of the Communications Sector to 2035.