#11: When may your smartphone be investigated?

Privacy is a hot topic these days now that everywhere around us data is being collected. Our tablets and smartphones contain a lot of information about our private lives. Not only all your contacts are accessible, also the communication with these contacts is saved. Your smartphone nowadays even knows how many steps you have taken today and where. It is not hard to imagine how much valuable information a smartphone contains for investigative departments of the police. The question is when these data carriers may be seized by the authorities? And when may the data be investigated on your phone? In the Netherlands a discussion exists on the question whether police officers may seize a smartphone upon arrest and search through the data. We would like to share this discussion with you.READ MORE

#03: Dutch pragmatism is taking over

The public prosecutor’s office in the Netherlands is of the opinion that professional privilege creates an obstacle in criminal investigations, mostly in fraud cases. In a public statement a public prosecutor stated that professional privilege is misused by for instance lawyers in order to cover up potential evidence in fraud cases. The public prosecutor’s office requested the judicial powers to clarify the scope of the professional privilege. It is not clear whether this public request of the public prosecutor’s office was obeyed. However we notice an increasing number of judicial decisions in which the professional privilege is object of discussion. While the professional privilege has a lot of interesting aspects we would like to lift out one topic. In this article we concentrate on the rules and procedures with regard to a search and seizure of for instance a law firm. Furthermore we question whether the current practice meets the criteria of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).READ MORE