For decades, cross-border access to electronic evidence relied on Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs), a process notorious for its bureaucracy and delays. Requests could take months or even years to process, passing through multiple government agencies and diplomatic channels before a service provider ever received a data disclosure request. The EU e-Evidence Regulation (EU) 2023/1543 fundamentally changes this landscape.
The Old World: MLATs
Under the MLAT framework, a prosecutor in France investigating a cybercrime needed to submit a request through their Ministry of Justice, which forwarded it to the German Ministry of Justice, which then issued a domestic legal order to the German service provider. This process typically took 6 to 18 months. In urgent cases, evidence was often destroyed or suspects had fled before the data could be obtained.
The New World: Direct Orders Under e-Evidence
Under the e-Evidence Regulation, that same French prosecutor can issue a European Production Order (EPOC) directly to the German service provider. The order is transmitted through the EU e-CODEX system and must be fulfilled within 10 days for standard requests or 8 hours in emergency situations. No diplomatic channels, no inter-governmental coordination, no months of waiting.
What This Means for Service Providers
The shift from MLATs to direct orders creates entirely new operational requirements for service providers. You need automated order intake systems, standardised data extraction processes, 24/7 operational readiness for emergency orders and comprehensive audit trails. The penalties for non-compliance are significant: fines can reach up to 2 percent of global annual revenue for large providers.
ICS provides a turnkey e-Evidence compliance platform that handles the complete lifecycle from order receipt to secure data delivery. Learn more about our e-Evidence solution.
