Law enforcement agencies and courts are increasingly investigating factual data (evidence) recorded in electronic (digital) form, which are stored on technical media. At the same time, the national criminal procedure legislation does not contain a clear definition of the term “electronic evidence”, which leads to ambiguous practices of their evaluation and use in the process of proving in the investigation of criminal offenses. The analysis of judicial practice also shows different approaches to assessing the relevance and admissibility of electronic evidence (factual data recorded in electronic (digital) form) in different types of proceedings. The article substantiates the need to define the category of “electronic evidence” in the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine and proposes the development of a new paradigm of electronic evidence theory.

The article deals with the issues of cyber security and cybercrime in the digital society. The areas for improving international cooperation to ensure the security of the Internet are proposed. Digitized society is being implemented around the world at a high rate and offers significant benefits for the development of both society as a whole and its individual components. At the same time, a factor that has a negative impact on this development is cybercrime. The article explores the current state and main trends of cybercrime, including its organized forms. The legislative and organizational measures are proposed to counter cybercrime, the leading role of international cooperation is emphasized, including the rapid exchange of electronic data to detect and investigate cybercrime.

The article examines the scale of involvement of Transnational Organized Criminal Groups (TOCG) in committing acts of corruption, and their related criminal cooperation with Transnational Corporations (TNCs) 1 , as well as public relations in this sphere, in particular on the example of Ukraine. It suggests a solution to the problem of transnational corruption crime, in particular, applying the theory of social naturalism. The ultimate goal of the article is to analyze the problem of transnational corruption as a "factor of social instability" and to introduce this term into scientific circulation in this context. The article uses such methods of scientific knowledge as induction and deduction, as well as philosophical and phenomenological methods. According to research, the mafia now operates on the same scale and as effectively as global corporate groups. Corporations can be compared with the governments of states in terms of their influence on the economy of the state and the adoption of appropriate decisions. The authors state that the measures taken by individual states to counter the pressure of powerful TNCs have not yet led to the achievement of these goals. Financial and industrial elites, in turn, with the help of TOCG, try to impose their own order on societies that are not yet ready due to differences in culture, history, laws, social order, mentality, etc. It is emphasized in the article that the level of transnational organized crime and corruption cannot yet be significantly reduced in local societies due to the fact that the goals of elites and certain states simply do not coincide. Nowadays we can note a significant number of symptoms, in particular -the existence of such a phenomenon as transnational corruption, which indicates that we have a crisis of social order in the world. The corruption used by the TNCs is a mandatory feature that allows, among other features, to distinguish transnational organized crime from other types of criminal activity. We can note such a feature of TOCG as a criminal symbiosis with TNCs, which is considered as a violation of public order that leads to a corresponding regression. Progress in minimizing transnational corruption can be achieved, in particular, with the help of social naturalism, through the application of the postulates of which it is possible to counteract the current manifestations of willfulness and illusions that exist today in all spheres of social life, including politics, economics, morality, religion, science, art, law, etc. The study proves that in the modern world, against the 1 The concept of transnational corporations is given in the Convention on Transnational Corporations, ratified by Ukraine on July 13, 1999, under № 921-XIV.

No abstract

Бусол О. Ю. -доктор юридичних наук, старший науковий співробітник, головний науковий співробітник відділу з вивчення проблем захисту національних інтересів в економічній сфері та протидії корупції Міжвідомчого науково-дослідного центру з проблем боротьби з організованою злочинністю при Раді національної безпеки і оборони України, м. Київ ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4713-4546; Гуцалюк М. В. -кандидат юридичних наук, старший науковий співробітник, доцент, головний науковий співробітник Міжвідомчого науково-дослідного центру з проблем боротьби з організованою злочинністю при Раді національної безпеки і оборони України, м. Київ ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4496-5173