Civil Society Groups Seek More Time to Review, Comment on Rushed Global Treaty for Intrusive Cross Border Police Powers

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Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), European Digital Rights (EDRi), and 40 other civil society organizations urged the Council of Europe’s Parliament Assembly and Committee of Ministers to allow more time for them to provide much-needed analysis and feedback on the flawed cross border police surveillance treaty its cybercrime committee rushed to approve without adequate privacy safeguards.

Digital and human rights groups were largely sidelined and excluded during the drafting process of the Second Additional Protocol to the Budapest Convention, an international treaty that will establish global procedures for law enforcement in one country to access personal user data from technology companies in other countries. The CoE Cybercrime Committee (T-CY)—which oversees the Budapest Convention—adopted in 2017 internal rules that foster a narrower range of participants for the drafting of this new Protocol.

The process has been largely opaque, led by public safety and law enforcement officials. And T-CY’s periodic consultations with civil society and the public have been criticized for their lack of detail, their short response timelines, and the lack of knowledge about countries’ deliberation on these issues. The T-CY rushed approval of the text on May 28th, signing off on provisions that put few limitations and provide little oversight, on police access to sensitive user data held by Internet companies around the world.

The Protocol now heads to the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) Committee on Legal A

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