Cloud Act Vs e-Evidence: What will judicial and law enforcement cooperation look like in the digital age? What rules access to data?
9 July 2019
Cross-border access to electronic evidence has become highly relevant given the growing digitalization of our society. The framework for police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters has, however, always been a sensitive topic as it touches on the core of the states’ sovereignty and definition of public order on their own territory.On June 26th, Fipra and SAMMAN Law & Corporate Affiars held the first of its new digital events series, welcoming over 40 participants from the EU institutions, businesses and trade associations to discuss the EU and US developments in law enforcement cooperation in a digitalized society.
Participants enjoyed contributions from the various high-level speakers, including Renate Nikolay, Head of Cabinet of Commissioner for Justice Věra Jourová, and Kenneth Harris, Senior Counsel for International Criminal Matters at the US Mission to the EU, who recalled the genesis of the e-Evidence package and the CLOUD Act respectively, before diving into their details and those of the EU – US negotiations for a new law enforcement agreement. Joni Korpinen, EU Affairs Specialist at the Ministry of Justice of Finland, highlighted Member States’ efforts to balance privacy rights with the law enforcement objectives throughout the e-Evidence discussions, to which reacted by explaining businesses’ concerns and proposals Maika Fohrenbach, Associate Policy Manager at AmCham EU. Introduced by Robert Madelin, Chairman of Fipra International, the first Fipra Digital Talks was moderated by Thaima Samman, Head of Digital at Fipra International, Partner at SAMMAN Law & Corporate Affairs.
“The event proved to be a great occasion to discuss this pertinent topic; we were happy to have the right people in the room at the right time. We saw today that when #Fipratalksdigital, it’s going to be a highly relevant discussion and exciting debate”, said Thaima. The event marks the beginning of a Fipra and Samman co-operation initiative designed to offer clients a single point of contact for all EU digital and data policy issues, covering related legislative, regulatory and other public affairs aspects in this area. Work in this area will be headed by Thaima Samman, the founding Partner of Cabinet Samman, who now becomes Head of Digital at Fipra and will be based in both Brussels and Paris. Robert Madelin, the Chairman of Fipra International, based in Brussels, will continue also to be particularly closely involved with our work on digital and data policy issues.
After the summer break, on 25th September, friends and specialists will meet for the second Fipra Digital Talks, this time addressing the issues of data sharing. Watch out or follow @FipraI and/or @CabinetSamman for the invitation.
