Inadmissibility decision concerning France
The Court declared inadmissible the applications in the case of A.L. and E.J. v. France.
Both applications concerned the remote retrieval of user data from the encrypted telecommunications tool EncroChat and their sharing with the United Kingdom law-enforcement authorities. EncroChat was an encrypted mobile-phone telecommunications tool, for which more than 66,000 handsets had been distributed covertly in 122 countries.
The Court noted that that the EncroChat user data had been collected at the French authorities’ initiative by means of a data retrieval measure that had been ordered in the context of criminal proceedings opened by the specialised inter-regional division of the Lille criminal court. The data relating to EncroChat users located in the UK had been transferred, as evidence already in the French authorities’ possession, for use in other criminal cases pursuant to a European Investigation Order (EIO) issued by the UK Crown Prosecution Service. Remotely retrieved data had thus been included as prosecution evidence in proceedings against both applicants in the UK.
The Court concluded that there had been a remedy available to the applicants in France by which they might have effectively challenged the data transfer measure taken pursuant to the EIO issued by the UK authorities, together with the data retrieval measure.