Access to computer files by authorities without judicial authorization violates private life
DECISION
Trabajo Rueda v. Spain 30-5-2017 (no. 32600/12)
SUMMARY
Access to computer records by the police without prior court decision and without urgency. Violation of privacy. The applicant went his computer to a store to replace a defective data recorder. The technician noticed that files on the computer contained child pornography material, and immediately informed the authorities that started investigations and arrested the applicant. The national courts condemned him.
The ECtHR found that the intervention in question had pursued the legitimate purpose of ‘crime prevention’ but found that the seizure and inspection of police files by the police in this case was disproportionate to the legitimate aims pursued and was therefore not “Necessary in a democratic society” nor was it urgent.
PROVISION
Article 8
PRINCIPAL FACTS
The applicant, Carlos Trabajo Rueda, is a Spanish national who was born in 1976 and lives in Seville (Spain).
On 17 December 2007 Mr Trabajo Rueda brought his computer to a computer shop to have a defective data recorder replaced. The technician duly replaced the part and tested it by opening a number of files, whereupon he noticed that they contained child pornography material. On 18 December 2007 he reported the facts to the authorities and handed over the computer to the police, who examined its content and passed it on to the police computer experts. The investigating judge was then informed of the ongoing police inquiries.
On 20 December 2007 Mr Trabajo Rueda was arrested on his way to the computer shop to pick up his computer. In May 2008 he was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment by the Seville Audiencia provincial for possession and circulation of pornographic images of minors. Mr Trabajo Rueda invited the court to declare the evidence null and void on the grounds that his right to respect for his private life had been infringed by the fact that the police had accessed the content and archives of his computer, but this request was dismissed. Mr Trabajo Rueda appealed on points of law and lodged an amparo appeal with the Constitutional Court, both of which remedies proved unsuccessful.
THE DECISION OF THE COURT
Article 8 (right to respect for private life)
First of all, the Court held that the fact of accessing files in Mr Trabajo Rueda’s personal computer and subsequently convicting him had amounted to an interference by the authorities with the applicant’s right to respect for his private life, noting that that interference was prescribed by domestic law, namely legal texts combined with the interpretative case-law of the Constitutional Court establishing the rule that prior judicial authorisation was required where an individual’s private life was likely to be infringed, except in emergencies, in which case subsequent judicial scrutiny was possible.
Secondly, the Court noted that the impugned interference had pursued the legitimate aim of “prevention of crime” and “protection of the rights of others”, emphasising that “sexual abuse is unquestionably an abhorrent type of wrongdoing, with debilitating effects on its victims” and that “children and other vulnerable individuals are entitled to State protection, in the form of effective deterrence, from such grave types of interference with essential aspects of their private lives”.
Thirdly, the Court found that the seizure and inspection of the computer files by the police as effected in the present case had been disproportionate to the legitimate aims pursued and had therefore not been “necessary in a democratic society”. The Court pointed out that it was difficult, in the present case, to assess the urgency of the situation requiring the police to seize the files from Mr Trabajo Rueda’s personal computer and to access their content, bypassing the normal requirement of prior judicial authorisation, given that there was no risk that the files would disappear, and that the computer had been seized and placed in safekeeping by the police and was not connected to Internet. The Court therefore failed to see why waiting the relatively short time to secure prior judicial authorisation before examining Mr Trabajo Rueda’s computer would have impeded the police investigation into the impugned facts.
Consequently, it found a violation of Article 8 of the Convention.
Just satisfaction (Article 41)
The Court held, unanimously, that the finding of a violation in itself constituted sufficient just satisfaction for any non-pecuniary damage sustained by Mr Trabajo Rueda.
Separate opinion Judge Dedov expressed a separate opinion, which is annexed to the judgment.
