Criminal Prohibitions when Using Mobile Applications

Abstract

The article summarizes interim results of a research performed under the project of the Russian Science Foundation focusing on criminal law risks of using mobile applications. These risks can be of two types: the risk of being held criminally liable and the risk of being victimized by the criminal activities of others. The second type of risk is better defined because it is addressed in the context of preventing crimes committed using information and telecommunications networks or in the field of computer information in general. The first one implies not only situations when a user intentionally causes harm through a mobile application, but also cases where people do things, the public danger and wrongfulness of which is not obvious to them. Such persons usually have no desire to violate criminal law but do so failing to understand the unlawfulness of their actions due to the specific environment and technological features. Therefore, the ultimate goal of this project (at the next step) is to ensure safety of mobile application users, including inadmissibility of their unjustified criminal liability, through the development of recommendations on the rules of behavior when using relevant technologies. The purpose of the work within the framework of the presented scientific article is to determine the state of use of mobile applications (characteristics of mobile Internet culture) and those criminal law regulations that may be consciously or unconsciously violated by users of mobile applications. To achieve this goal two sociological surveys were conducted among users of mobile applications to determine how they use their mobile devices. The provisions of the criminal law and the materials of criminal cases were analyzed in order to understand what crimes can be committed by users of mobile applications who actually did not want and did not understand that they were violating the criminal law.