The inability of the mutual legal assistance frameworks to meet the growing demand for cross-border access to electronic evidence has led to various legislative proposals that suggest replacing mutual legal assistance with direct requests to communication service providers located abroad. These solutions include the US CLOUD Act, the EU E-Evidence Proposals, and the Second Additional Protocol to the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime. This chapter discusses the challenges of current regimes governing access to electronic evidence stored with providers abroad and analyses the new legislative frameworks relevant to the EU and their possible effects. The author argues that replacing traditional mutual legal assistance mechanisms with direct requests to providers can lead to privatisation of law enforcement and, ultimately, have a severe effect on the protection of fundamental rights in the EU and beyond.
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The author would like to sincerely thank Gertjan Boulet and Michael Reiterer for their valuable feedback on the draft of this chapter and their tireless efforts to make this book a success.
As this chapter refers to the EU Directives and Regulations, it is important to highlight the difference between these legislative acts. The EU Directives set the goals that must be achieved by the member states, but each member state decides how to transpose them into their national laws. The EU Regulations are binding acts and apply in their entirety to each of the EU member state.
See e.g. European Commission, “Commission staff working document. Impact assessment”, April 17, 2018; Gail Kent, “The Mutual Legal Assistance Problem Explained”, (2015), http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2015/02/ mutual-legal-assistance-problem-explained; Andrew K. Woods, “Data Beyond Borders: Mutual Legal Assistance in the Internet Era”, January 27, 2015, https://uknowledge.uky.edu/law_facpub/518/
Stanislaw Tosza, “Cross-Border Gathering of Electronic Evidence : Mutual Legal Assistance, Its Shortcomings and Remedies”, Société numérique et droit pénal, edited by Daniel Flore and Vanessa Franssen, (Bruylant: 2019), 269
Paul de Hert, Cihan Parlar and Johannes Thumfart. “Legal Arguments Used in Courts Regarding Territoriality and Cross-Border Production Orders: From Yahoo Belgium to Microsoft Ireland”, New Journal of European Criminal Law 9, no. 3 (September 2018), 18-20.
European Commission, “Recommendation for a Council Decision authorising the opening of negotiations in view of an agreement between the European Union and the United States of America on cross-border access to electronic evidence for judicial cooperation in criminal matters”, February 5, 2019, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52019PC0070
Theodore Christakis and Fabien Terpan, “EU-US Negotiations on Law Enforcement Access to Data: Divergences, Challenges and EU Law Procedures and Options”, International Data Privacy Law, 11 (2), (2021), 1
Valsamis Mitsilegas, “The Privatisation of Mutual Trust in Europe’s Area of Criminal Justice: The Case of e-Evidence”, Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law 25, no. 3 (June 2018), 265
European Parliament, “Report on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down harmonised rules on the appointment of legal representatives for the purpose of gathering evidence in criminal proceedings”, December 11, 2020, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/A-9-2020-0256_EN.html
Even though South Korea is not a party to the Budapest Convention, efforts have been made to join the treaty. For more discussion on this topic, please see the chapter of Gibum Kim.