Court of Cassation questions evidence from EncroChat hack
France's highest court has overturned an appeal court ruling and sent a criminal case back for retrial, finding that magistrates failed to provide the legally required certificate to authenticate data intercepted from the encrypted EncroChat network.
Court of Cassation questions evidence from EncroChat hack
The Court of Cassation has invalidated a decision by the Nancy court of appeal and ordered a fresh examination of criminal proceedings based on evidence from the encrypted telephone network EncroChat. The supreme court found that investigators failed to comply with mandatory procedures to legalise the interceptions.
In its ruling, the Court noted the absence of an authenticity certificate attesting to the veracity of data and messages captured on EncroChat terminals. This document is required under French law to validate this type of evidence. Furthermore, police and prosecution services invoked the secret of national defence to refuse to disclose the technical methods of the hacking operation, conducted jointly by France and the Netherlands.
Lawyer Robin Binsard, who brought the case before the high court, welcomed the decision on social media. According to him, the Court clearly established that without this authenticity certificate, evidence covered by the defence secret could not be considered lawful. The case will now be examined by another bench of the Metz court of appeal, which will have to verify whether this document actually exists.
It should be noted that French digital specialists recovered 120 million messages exchanged by EncroChat users in several countries during an innovative interception operation conducted in 2020. This data fed investigations worldwide. In the United Kingdom, the national crime agency had carried out more than 2,600 arrests linked to these interceptions by the end of last year. More than 1,380 people had been charged and 260 convicted as part of Operation Venetic. Law enforcement had also seized 165 firearms, 5.6 tonnes of Category A drugs and £75 million in cash.
The Binsard Martine firm, which pleaded this case, now calls on counterparts across Europe to challenge the use of this evidence in courts. The lawyers argue that the collection of this data breached fundamental principles of criminal law and intend to continue their fight to obtain the outright annulment of these elements.
Source: Computer Weekly
Source: Computer Weekly