Modern day criminal investigations are increasingly reliant upon online evidence, which may be stored internationally and require months of judicial process to gain access to. Negotiations are set to begin between the European Union and the United States to speed up the process by which electronic evidence is exchanged between nations in criminal investigations.

Currently, the US must abide by EU data protection laws, which can complicate the process in turning over electronic evidence involving EU citizens. The proposed agreement re-works this framework to allow for a more efficient exchange of evidence without the legal risk for U.S. companies. The agreement also focuses on gaining direct cooperation with international internet service providers to shorten the time required to obtain the requested information.

European Commissioner Julian King made a statement on the importance of the negotiations: “For far too long, criminals and terrorists have been abusing modern technology to commit their crimes. By setting international standards to obtain access to electronic evidence, we are taking yet another step to close the space in which they operate by ensuring law enforcement authorities can more effectively investigate and prosecute them, with full regard for fundamental rights.”

While the thought of an increased speed of evidence exchange sounds beneficial, citizens’ rights to data protection and privacy must prioritized. For this reason, it is suspected negotiations will take a considerable amount of time to reach a conclusion.

Email: sensei@senseient.com   Phone: 703.359.0700
Digital Forensics/Cybersecurity/Information Technology
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In October of 2018, Ho Ka Terence Yung pled guilty to cyberstalking the University of Texas alum who conducted interviews for admittance into school’s law program. While Yung did not get accepted into the UT law school program, he did get a full scholarship to attend another law school within the state of Texas.

While attending law school, he started to blame the alum who conducted the interview because he was not admitted into the UT program. He then proceeded to start an online campaign of cyber harassment against the alum that included posting violent and racist statements on multiple websites that were falsely attributed to the victim. One instance of the cyberharassment included Yung pretending to be a female candidate for admission claiming that she was sexually assaulted by the victim during the law school interview. Post were also created online claiming that the victim was accused of child molestation.

The FBI and local police worked together to gather electronic evidence in this case. According to the FBI, Yung had also placed ads on websites calling for people to show up at the victim’s home, which activity was ultimately traced back to his roommate’s computer.

The FBI and U.S. Attorney for Delaware obtained records that proved Yung had used his roommate’s computer and internet access, along with his work computer to commit the crime and conceal what he was doing.

Yung recently was sentenced to 46 months in prison.

Email: sensei@senseient.com   Phone: 703.359.0700
Digital Forensics/Cybersecurity/Information Technology
https://senseient.com/services/digital-forensics/