The Legal Regime of IT Assets as an Object of Public and Private Law Relations

For the first time in the  Russian legal literature, the paper examines the legal nature of IT assets. Approaches to understanding IT assets in the economic sphere and in the field of information and telecommunication relations, as well as in current Russian legislation, are considered. From the perspective of public law objectives, this category is primarily distinguished to separate the objects of information infrastructure that are created for the purpose of digital transformation in the system of both state and municipal governance. It is concluded that the definition of IT assets for the purposes of carrying out activities for the digital transformation of the public (municipal) management system can be used in general for use in the public sphere. It is proposed to consider IT assets as an object of public law relations as a set of information technologies and systems, components of information and telecommunication infrastructure, information and telecommunication networks, software, hardware and software complexes, as well as individual computer programs and equipment used as IT infrastructure of subjects of public law relations for the implementation of assigned functions. They have legislative authority and support for their digital transformation activities. It is concluded that IT assets as an object of information legal relations should be considered from the perspective of an infrastructure facility that is clearly delineated from information. IT assets as an object are designed to perform certain actions with information. From the perspective of the private law nature, IT assets are most often individual intellectual property objects, complex intellectual property objects, or complex objects that include things and intellectual property objects.

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