Handling and Exchanging Electronic Evidence Across Europe (Law, Governance and Technology Series (39))

This volume offers a general overview on the handling and regulating electronic evidence in Europe, presenting a standard for the exchange process. Chapters explore the nature of electronic evidence and readers will learn of the challenges involved in upholding the necessary standards and maintaining the integrity of information. Challenges particularly occur when European Union member states collaborate and evidence is exchanged, as may be the case when solving a cybercrime. One such challenge is that the variety of possible evidences is so wide that potentially anything may become the evidence of a crime. Moreover, the introduction and the extensive use of information and communications technology (ICT) has generated new forms of crimes or new ways of perpetrating them, as well as a new type of evidence.

Contributing authors examine the legal framework in place in various EU member states when dealing with electronic evidence, with prominence given to data protection and privacy issues. Readers may learn about the state of the art tools and standards utilized for treating and exchanging evidence, and existing platforms and environments run by different Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) at local and central level. Readers will also discover the operational point of view of LEAs when dealing with electronic evidence, and their requirements and expectations for the future. Finally, readers may consider a proposal for realizing a unique legal framework for governing in a uniform and aligned way the treatment and cross border exchange of electronic evidence in Europe.

The use, collection and exchange of electronic evidence in the European Union context and the rules, practises, operational guidelines, standards and tools utilized by LEAs, judges, Public prosecutors and other relevant stakeholders are all covered in this comprehensive work. It will appeal to researchers in both law and computer science, as well as those with an interest in privacy, digital forensics, electronic evidence, legal frameworks and law enforcement.

Maria Angela Biasiotti is a Researcher at ITTIG-CNR. She has a degree in Law (1999) and holds a Ph.D. in Information Technologies and Law (2008) at the Faculty of Law, Bologna University. In 2001 she started her activity at the Institute of Legal Information Theory and Techniques (CNR-ITTIG).She collaborates also with the European University Institute. Since 2012 she is a member of the Ordinatory Committee of the FORESIGHT S&T Project of the National Research Council of Italy. Starting from March 2014 she coordinates the EVIDENCE – European Informatics Data Exchange Framework for Courts and Evidence Project and follow-up of this with the EVIDENCE2e-Codex Project (2018-2019). She collaborates in several other European Projects:  ESSENTIAL (Evolving Security Science Through Networked Technologies, Information Policy and Law) H2020-MSCA-ITN 2016- European Joint Doctorate; CARISMAND (Culture And RISk Management in Man-made And Natural Disasters; CITYCOP (Citizen Interaction Technologies Yield Community Policing) ; MAPPING (Managing Alternatives for Privacy, Property and INternet Governance); SMART ( Scalable Measures for Automated Recognition Technologies EU project); RESPECT (Rules. Expectations & Security through Privacy-Enhanced Convenient Technologies EU project), CARE ( Citizens Consular Assistance Regulation in Europe); Multilingual thesauri Matching Project financed by the OPOCE; Caselex project (financed by the European Commission under the e-Content and later e-Ten program);Norme-in-Rete project realizing and ABC for the Law helping users of the portal to access in a conscious way legal contents.

 

Jeanne Pia Mifsud Bonnici first studied law at the University of Malta where she received a Doctor of Laws degree (LLD) with a thesis on data protection issues in the medical sector. As a Chevening Scholar, she read for a Masters in Cognitive Science at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. After some years of teaching and legal practice,she read for a Doctor of Law degree at the University of Groningen researching on self-regulation in cyberspace. In 2009 she was awarded a Rosalind Franklin Fellowship at the University of Groningen. She has been appointed Professor at the same university and hold the Chair in European Technology Law and Human Rights at the Department of European and Economic Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Groningen. Since 2010, she has co-leaded the STeP Research Group, which she also co-founded. She has taught and researched law at the University of Malta, the University of Central Lancashire, the University of Amsterdam and currently at the Faculty of Law of the University of Groningen.

 

Joe Cannataci studied law at the University of Malta and the University of Oslo. He later qualified in the UK as a Chartered Information Technology Professional and also holds Chartered Fellowship of the British Computer Society. He received a Doctor of Laws degree (LLD) from the University of Malta in 1986 with a thesis on privacy and data protection law published by the Norwegian University Press in 1987. Joe was T54 Project Director at the Norwegian Research Center for Computers and Law during 1986-1987 before he joined the Department of Public Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Malta, where in 1988 he established the Law & IT Research Unit (LITRU). In 2006 he was appointed Professor of Law at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN) in the United Kingdom. Between 2006 and 2007 he was Head of Lancashire Law School and from 2007-to 2011 he was Director of the Centre for Law, Information & Converging Technologies at UCLAN. In 2011 he was appointed Head of the Department of Information Policy & Governance at the Faculty of Media & Knowledge Sciences of the University of Malta and also Chair of European Information Policy & Technology Law within the Faculty of Law at the University of Groningen. He is additionally Adjunct Professor at the SecurityResearch Centre, School of Computer and Security Science at Edith Cowan University Australia.

 

Fabrizio Turchi is the technological director at ITTIG and took a degree in Mathematic from University of Florence. His research activities are the applications of IT technology to legal domain, legal standard and legal drafting, use of the XML technologies to devise legal documents models. He has been designing and developing Web applications, formal parsers to identify parts and structures that exist inside textual documents and natural language processing techniques applied to legal documents for knowledge extraction, such as automated text classification and anonymity processes based on Named Entity Recognition (NER). He is involved in many European Projects: EVIDENCE (European Informatics Data Exchange Framework for Courts and Evidence - March 2014/August 2016 ), where he is the Standard issues WP leader; MAPPING (Managing Alternatives for Privacy, Property and INternetGovernance - March 2014/February 2018); CASELEX (financed by the European Commission under the e-Content and later e-Ten program). Within the activities of the EVIDENCE project he is leader of the Work Package WP4 (Standard Issues), whose main aim consists of identifying open standards, for the handling of E.E. and for its exchange across EU member.