The challenges of criminal investigations in the age of Internet

AutorJ. Carlos Lara
Páginas229-231

Page 228

See note 95

Prosecuting crimes often involves the practice of intrusive measures in the sphere of intimacy and privacy of individuals. This fact becomes even more complex when it touches our own personal communications on the Internet. Are Latin America’s procedural systems ready to face these challenges?

It is normal for states to chase and prosecute crimes that affect our society or its functioning. This naturally requires obtaining information in order to know what is happening and taking the appropriate measures. However, this search for information may often require measures that affect the interests of people or the gathering of data beyond authorized cases. These interests may be particularly affected in relation to spaces of intimacy or privacy, i.e., criminal investigation may require the execution of intrusive measures.

Intrusive measures can be identiied as those permitted in the context of a criminal investigation, which aim to delve into aspects and circumstances within the margins of the private sphere of the accused and of any relevant relationships, to help solve the cases. Thus, it is possible to break the protection of privacy, under certain rules or formalities which are established at a legal level. As an exception, there are also certain scenarios that warrant the implementation of intrusive measures without prior authorization, as in cases of in fraganti, under set legal requirements.

Page 229

However, it is not very clear whether our national procedural systems are capable of providing any solutions for such variables which could potentially affect fundamental rights or any other variants. Moreover, if there are such rules, their mere existence does not guarantee that the conditions for gathering information are in any way optimal for safeguarding fundamental rights.

In other words, a likely irst question would base itself on the existence of some rules. If these do exist, then a second question would ask whether the rules provide a balanced framework for the infringement of rights, with the intention of inding the truth.

In this effort, it would be worthy to focus the attention on measures relating speciically to the Internet. The reasons are more or less obvious: the more details of our lives that we share on the Internet, the more evidence we leave of the things that we do and are involved in.

This may mean, for example, that plans are being made or information is being sent through email. But from...

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