Emails, SMS & Co
Investigators should be able to access data more easily in the EU
Access to digital data for the prosecution of serious crimes in the EU should become easier and faster. photo
© Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/dpa
Until now, prosecutors in the EU have often had to fight hard for access to electronic evidence such as chat messages. An agreement in Brussels now gives hope that this will soon change.
Investigators in the European Union should have easier and faster access to electronic evidence such as e-mails, SMS and chat messages to prosecute serious crimes.
Negotiators from the European Parliament and the governments of the EU states reached preliminary political agreement on new rules for access to digital data in the evening, as announced by the Czech EU Council Presidency. Accordingly, only technical details and formal confirmation by the Council of Member States and the plenary session of the European Parliament are still missing.
According to the EU Commission responsible for the text, the core of the new regulation is a so-called publication order. In the future, it should enable the judicial authorities to request access to electronic evidence directly from a service provider via a decentralized IT system. They then have to respond within ten days or, in an emergency, even within eight hours. A so-called security order is also intended to prevent electronic evidence from being deleted by service providers.
“Take effective action against terrorism and cybercrime”
“The new rules on e-evidence are urgently needed so that our judiciary and law enforcement agencies can take effective action against terrorism, cybercrime and other serious forms of crime,” commented EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson on the agreement. Currently, on a borderless internet, criminals often remain anonymous, resulting in impunity.
According to EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders, authorities in the EU member states sent more than 100,000 requests for electronic evidence to the largest online service providers in the second half of 2020 alone. With the new production order, member states would now have a reliable channel to get data quickly.
Protection of fundamental rights should be guaranteed
In order to improve cooperation between authorities and service providers, according to the Commission, all service providers should appoint special representatives who will take care of processing requests for information. At the same time, the protection of fundamental rights and personal data should always be guaranteed.
SPD politician Birgit Sippel, who is negotiating for the EU Parliament, said that under pressure from Parliament, it had been agreed that the member state in which the service provider is based must be informed at the same time when orders are issued for the release of particularly sensitive data – such as traffic and content data . The informed authority must then review the order within the time limit and, if necessary, refuse the order – for example, if the act is not a criminal offense in the provider’s country or if the disclosure of the data would mean a violation of press freedom.
According to Sippel, the providers themselves can also draw the attention of the responsible authorities in their country to critical orders. The interior politician described the overall project as the basis for a “turning point in European cooperation between the police and the judiciary”.