The EU is taking steps to improve cross-border access to e-evidence by creating a legal framework that will enable judicial orders to be addressed directly to service providers operating in the EU.
The Council today reached its position on the directive on the appointment of legal representatives for the gathering of evidence in criminal proceedings.
This directive will be an essential tool for the application of the future regulation on European production and preservation orders for electronic evidence in criminal matters, on which the Council adopted its position last December, as it sets out the rules for the appointment of service providers’ legal representatives, whose role is to receive and respond to such orders. The creation of legal representatives was necessary because of the lack of a general legal requirement for non-EU service providers to be physically present in the Union when providing services within the Union. Moreover, the legal representatives designated under this directive could be used for domestic procedures as well.