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Of: TT
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1 of 3 | Photo: Naina Hel n Jåma / TT
The permission to read secret data is decided by a court and since April, 145 cases of this type have been pending decision. Stock Photography.
About 150 different decisions have been made about reading secret data since last spring, when the police got the chance.
The decision to allow the police to sneak into computers and mobile phones was requested. But prosecutors believe more is needed to stop the criminal gangs.
– In general, we are happy to have received the legislation, says Lise Tamm, Chief Prosecutor of the National Unit against International and Organized Crime (Rio).
– But that is not enough. It is not as useful as the old wiretaps were and it is clear that we would need even greater opportunities.
In the fight against gang violence, secret coercive measures are increasingly being singled out as crucial. For six months now, the police, Säpo, customs and the Swedish Environmental Crimes Agency have had the legal right to use the new coercive secret data reading (HDA) measure.
The coercive measure means that authorities can secretly install spyware, so-called Trojans, or with other technical aids to collect information on the mobile phones and computers of suspected criminals before it is encrypted. It can be anything from reviewing documents, logging a position, and intercepting passwords to checking images, listening to chats and conversations, and seeing which websites are being visited.
Permission for secret data reading is decided by a court and, since April, 145 such cases have been pending a decision, according to the Security and Integrity Protection Board, which receives a notification on each decision.
Strong probative value
The figure includes all decisions, both approvals and rejections and additions. TT has not received a response on how many people have actually been intercepted with reading secret data, and what criminal suspicions the interception worries about. The authorities refer to secrecy.
But there are ongoing cases with secret reading of data and, according to Måns Biörklund, deputy chief prosecutor in Malmö, it looks “promising”.
– It is always the case of the new recognition methods and coercive measures that are developed as a whole. I think we will benefit even more in the future, he says.
Biörklund does not know that any case involving the secret reading of data has yet reached prosecution and trial. But he considers the value of the evidence to be strong and compares it to Encrochat, the encrypted mobile service where criminals communicated about, among other things, murder plots and drug-related crimes, and which French authorities managed to hack in early this year.
– Reading secret data also means that you can access certain encrypted data traffic on a phone. The things you find can be everything from proving the crime to where you made the money, says Måns Biörklund.
Sweden was relatively slow to introduce secret data reading to Europe. The Danish police had the opportunity as early as 2002 and the Norwegian police in 2016. At the same time, the police have estimated that more than 90 per cent of the digital communication they have tried to listen to in recent years is encrypted, often through common applications such as WhatsApp, Signal and Wickr.
Difficult to perform
But there are also difficulties with the new method.
Prosecutor Lise Tamm points out that reading secret data can be difficult to obtain. I would prefer to see other types of metrics to access encrypted information.
– If a company wishes to provide such a chat service, we would like that for the most serious crimes, after a court decision, you are obliged to hand over the cryptographic keys to the police in the special accounts where you have a person from whom reasonably suspected. a serious crime, she says.
Måns Biörklund emphasizes the importance of constantly continuing to develop technology.
– There are always new solutions so there is nothing to rest on. It requires a cutting-edge experience that must be developed in countries or in the Europol European cooperation to access encrypted services that are adapted to organized crime, which I affirm are some services, he says.
The secret data reading law is valid for five years and then must be evaluated. As early as June, the Safety and Integrity Protection Board (Sin) began an initial review of how the law is applied.
– There are a number of coercive measures where the secret reading of data has been used that we have requested to examine how it has been used and that the legal conditions for its use exist, says Cecilia Agnehall, Head of Unit at Sin.
Privacy breach
The committee analyzes, among other things, how the request is formulated, how the data is read, how the material is destroyed and how notifications to people are handled.
TT: Is there anything in particular that you have reacted to in the cases now under review?
– It may be, but usually it is a task I cannot get into, says Cecilia Agnehall.
Unlike other coercive coercive measures that the board reviews, you can be more active when it comes to reading secret data and also review the effort while it is underway.
– It is new legislation and for the individual who is exposed, it means a far-reaching privacy violation, says Cecilia Agnehall.
Oversight is a priority and the board is expected to be able to present a statement early next year.
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