Allegations of illegal wiretapping by Cyprus Police
A former member of Cyprus Police command staff claims that authorities monitored private citizens' conversations in real time before relevant legal frameworks were enacted.
Allegations of illegal wiretapping by Cyprus Police
A former law enforcement officer and digital forensics specialist claimed that Cyprus Police proceeded with recording private citizens' conversations in real time before legislation permitting such practices was even passed.
Alexis Mavros, who holds certification from the international IACIS organisation and a postgraduate degree in computer criminology, spoke on Alpha television last Tuesday. He stated with certainty that law enforcement authorities made use of wiretapping, but deferred the question of legality to lawyers.
The relevant legislation was approved by Parliament in 2020, but was never implemented in practice. Initial technical problems prevented the law from being activated. Later, telecommunications companies refused to cooperate with authorities, citing that the current regime breaches constitutional rights. CYTA had raised such issues, which led to a new draft law recently discussed in Parliament, though the process was not completed.
Criminal law expert Ilias Stefanou, in an interview with a television station in late 2022, distinguished between two different forms of monitoring: direct interception of conversations and collection of communication data (who communicated with whom and for how long). The first form had been passed into law but had not been implemented, whilst the second was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. According to decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union, any surveillance of communications presupposes the existence of specific suspicions before it begins.
Source: Philenews
Source: Philenews