The European Commission plans to propose, by the end of the year, the setting up of an IT platform to increase the efficiency of investigations conducted by Joint Investigation Teams in cross-border cases, according to a roadmap published on Tuesday 27 April.
Joint Investigation Teams (JITs) are teams set up for a specific purpose and for a limited period of time by the competent authorities of two or more Member States to carry out joint criminal investigations with a cross-border impact.
Currently, there is no dedicated IT platform to help JITs process the information collected during an investigation. This means that for each JIT, Member States must agree on procedures and technological solutions, the Commission explains.
Furthermore, participants in a JIT are sometimes forced to use unsecured communication channels, such as instant messaging, and may not have the digital means to exchange large amounts of data securely.
The Commission therefore intends to ensure that members of a JIT can use a technological solution that is not dependent on the IT infrastructure used by Member States’ law enforcement and judicial authorities, while facilitating the exchange of data with the case management systems of the Member States as well as the EU bodies participating in the JIT.
See the roadmap: https://bit.ly/3vrb2Bv (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)