The European Parliament supports accelerating the exchange of electronic evidence in cross-border investigations

BRUSSELS, June 13 () –

The plenary session of the European Parliament has supported this Tuesday new rules to speed up the exchange of information and electronic evidence in cross-border investigations by law enforcement authorities.

The adopted legislative package will introduce a community framework for the handling of electronic evidence, speed up the process of gathering evidence and maintain the guarantees of fundamental rights.

MEPs have approved the two-part package by 433 votes in favour, 157 against and 34 abstentions, for the regulation on production orders, and 438 votes in favour, 152 against and 34 abstentions, for the directive on representatives legal.

The new rules will allow national authorities to request evidence directly from service providers in other member states or request that data be kept for up to 60 days, so that relevant data is not destroyed or lost.

The law also introduces a mandatory period of 10 days to respond to a production order, which is reduced to eight hours in emergencies.

As part of the same package, MEPs have adopted a directive obliging service providers in the EU to appoint designated establishments or legal representatives where Member State authorities can deal with requests for electronic evidence.

MEPs have also introduced provisions ensuring that authorities can refuse evidence requests when they have concerns about media freedom or violations of fundamental rights in the requesting country, while service providers will be able to flag concerns about the freedom of media.

They have also ensured that ordering authorities requesting sensitive data –such as traffic data, except when used only for identification and content data– will in most cases have to notify authorities in the destination country to ensure transparency.