Mobile phone security – Lawyers: “A half-hearted compromise”

In the last meters of a tough, years-long government marathon, the ÖVP and the Greens were able to agree on a new arrangement for the seizure of data carriers by order of the Constitutional Court (VfGH). It does not generate enthusiasm, especially among lawyers.

“The agreement is a half-hearted compromise and does not include any personnel or organizational separation of the processing and evaluation of the seized mobile phone data, as urgently requested by the lawyers. This contradicts the demands of the Constitutional Court,” said Armenak Utudjian, President of the Austrian Constitutional Court. Day of the Bar Association in conversation with the Crown.

It’s about the principle of separation. “The person conducting the forensic evaluation should not be the one processing the data.” It must be defined exactly why which data is important and in which period. Without this separation, virtually nothing would change about the status quo. And the so-called “accidental discoveries” on data carriers, which lead to new criminal cases, are still present. See the numerous and difficult to manage procedures that have emerged in Ibiza in recent years and are far from over. And the public prosecutor remains ‘master of the process’.

Missed opportunities
Utudjian assumes that this new arrangement will also end up before the Constitutional Court very soon. Because the Supreme Court just demanded a change. And noted that the current legal situation violates the right to private life and data protection. Utudjian: “I find it regrettable that the opportunity for a legally clean solution has been missed and that the rights of those affected are still insufficiently protected.” This is also a central point in the extensive list of demands that the lawyers the so-called sweetheart coalition has orchestrated.