MOSCOW, September 5 (RAPSI) – Russia’s Ministry of Communications and Mass Media has drafted a bill on punishment for forgery of digital signature. The document has been published on the federal website of draft laws and regulations.

Amendments are proposed to the Criminal Code, the Code of Administrative Offenses and the law on electronic signature.

The bill has been drafted because of stepped-up cases of creating and using encrypted digital signature without its owner's knowledge or consent.

The initiative stipulates introducing to the Criminal Code fines of up to 300,000 rubles ($4,400), community service for up to 2 years and ban on holding certain positions for 3 years for officials of qualified trust service providers found guilty of violating a procedure of issuing a qualified certificate of the key for verification of digital signature.

Moreover, prison terms of up to 5 years are proposed for intentional issuance of a qualified certificate containing knowingly false information on its owner and deliberate violation by officials of procedures of digital signature key storage and e-signature creation with the use of that key by the order of the certificate’s owner.

Amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses envisage fines of up to 500,000 rubles ($7,300) for qualified trust service providers guilty of violating the order of storage and creation of e-signature. Fines of up to 50,000 rubles ($730) are proposed for officials refusing to accept electronic documents with an appropriate qualified electronic signature.