e-Evidence Regulation poses a threat to professional secrecy and confidentiality

The e-Evidence Regulation poses a threat to the duties of professional secrecy and confidentiality, and to fundamental rights such as press and media freedoms, the right to privacy, and the right to a fair trial.

The Regulation provides poorly designed safeguards that, in practice, will not prevent illegitimate access to the communications and data of doctors, social workers and lawyers, in breach of their legal obligations towards their patients and clients. In the majority of cases, the service providers will remain the sole defence against law enforcement overreach. Unfortunately, even their power to halt the execution of orders is limited and clearly disincentivised.

Read more on the EDRi website.