INTRODUCTION

Emerging digital technology that has become an integral part of our daily lives requires new legal understanding and, thus, laws and legal acts to regulate appropriate application.

Let me define the key terms to be used in this article: information, and digital and analogue technologies.

Digital and analog technologies are informational. Paragraph 2 of Article 2 of the Federal Law "On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection" (hereinafter - the Federal Law "On Information") considers the term "information technologies" as processes and methods of searching, collecting, storing, processing, providing, and disseminating information, and execution of such processes and methods.

The way information is represented in analog technologies is an analog (continuous) physical quantity, for example, the voltage or the strength of the electric current. Analog technologies include among others the cassette recorder, mechanical clock, gramophone record, film camera, landline telephone.

Digital technologies convert information into a discontinuous (discrete) data set that consists of 0 (no signal) and 1 (signal present). In other words, instead of storing sounds and pictures as images on plastic or magnetic tapes, information is converted into numbers displayed and stored within them. Digital technology is a more advanced level in the development of information technology.

THE DEFINITION AND TYPES OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES (DT)

Despite the increasing number of applications of digital technologies, there is still no unified interpretation of the term in the scientific literature.

According to Loseva, Tazikhina and Fedotova (2021), digital technologies are an information system that is based on discrete (discontinuous) ways of coding and translating data, allowing for a very short time to solve various problems. In this interpretation of digital technology, the use of the term "information system" is challenged.

Based on the concept used in Paragraph 3 of Art. 2 of the Federal Law “On Information", information system is a data set contained in databases, while information technology and technical means ensure data processing. Therefore, the definition proposed by Loseva, Tazikhina and Fedotova (2021) provides a limited definition of the concept, which violates one of the principles of definition construction - the principle of proportionality. Databases, as data storage, are a type of digital technology and are used in most, digital technologies. Wireless technologies, for example, exclusively transfer data between two or more points at a distance without using a wired network.

The State Standard 34.321-96 also does not explicitly describe the capabilities of digital technology: it only indicates that the information system organizes the storage and manipulation of information.

Romanova's (Romanova 2022) more broadly defines digital technologies as "a discrete system based on the methods of coding and transmission of information, which allows a variety of tasks in the shortest possible time”.

Lipsmeyer (2018) formulated his definition of digital technologies as the knowledge, skills, technological and technical solutions for the creation, processing, transmission, and use of digital data, as well as the systems and procedures for their practical implementation.

Certain types of digital technologies, such as social networks (change the way people communicate and interact within and outside the group), mobile technologies (provide instant access to information), analytical technologies (generate new information based on existing data) and cloud technologies (provide access to computing resources (CPU time, RAM, disk space, network connectivity), services, programs) are often only briefly listed in the literature, instead of framing the definitions for particular studies.

Kartskhia (2018) gives a more detailed description of the types of digital technology referring to them as high-speed and industrial Internet, integrated industrial networks and artificial intelligence, cyberphysical systems and neurotechnologies with a fundamentally new mechanism of interaction between humans and robotic devices. Kartskhia’s (2018) definition also includes technologies of automatic identification service, collection and processing of global databases, cloud computing services and computing, "smart" robotic complexes and devices, and various IT platforms and services (services) in digital environments like social networks.

Lipsmeyer (2018) outlines eight types of digital technology:

1. Communication technologies intended for sending and receiving digital data (e.g. Bluetooth, 5G)
2. Data storage technologies where digital data is stored without changes (e.g. databases, cloud technology)
3. Analytical technologies for detecting dependencies and patterns (e.g. neural networks, machine learning)
4. Manufacturing technologies that create a physically measurable result from digital data (e.g. additive manufacturing - 3D printing)
5. Visualization technologies for the presentation of digital data (e.g. augmented reality technologies)
6. Interface technologies linking humans to the digital world (e.g. neuro-computer interface (brain-computer interface)
7. Interactive technologies for the use and creation of digital data, which put the functional focus on the application (e.g. a tablet can be used both for input to create digital data and for displaying information on a device)
8. Sensor technologies that generate digital data based on physical geometry or movement. Through the use of these technologies, both the geometry of an object (e.g. length or width) and the physical (mechanical) movements (e.g. speed of movement or displacement) can be measured. These values measured with a DT are then converted into digital data (e.g. 3D scanner).