Chapter 12 analyses Irish law on police access to digital evidence. It outlines the domestic legal framework regarding data retention, interception of communications and access to stored data. It then considers the law governing cross-border requests for data. It assesses the extent to which these rules are adequate for law enforcement purposes and whether these rules are compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, the Charter of Fundamental Rights and data protection standards.

Chapter 1 provides a broader picture of electronic evidence and digitalisation. After an overview of the latest EU digital and security strategies and their basic principles, it analyses specific far-reaching legislative instruments based on new ideas of EU criminal law prevention, reaction and cooperation in the digital age. It then analyses the main right affected by the new approach and instruments – the right to privacy – from a historical perspective and a modern understanding through concepts developed initially by the case law of the US Supreme Court. It addresses the question of what legal boundaries are necessary in the digital age for such a right to still be an effective one. Last, the chapter looks at the aspects of digitalisation in the EU criminal law justice area that pose the most questions when comparing digital cross-border cooperation with classical cross-border cooperation based on mutual recognition. It considers judicial (court) authorisation and its meaning, oversight and extraterritorial application of legislation in that regard.

Chapter 15 looks at the new set of investigative measures introduced by the reform of the Criminal Procedure Code in Spain, in 2015, which changed completely the approach to the investigation of cybercrime, transformed now into one of the most modern in Europe. The new regulation introduced the latest high-tech investigative tools, imposing a complete set of duties of cooperation on all internet service providers. However, the Spanish legislator failed to amend the domestic legal framework on electronic communications data retention, and so it is not compatible with the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the EU. This chapter describes the rules as developed and applied by the Spanish courts, before and after the amendments of the Criminal Procedure Code 2015, and several subsequent laws on digital data that, since then, have been adopted in reaction to the EU’s legal framework in the field.

State actors in Europe, in particular security authorities, are increasingly deploying biometric methods such as facial recognition for different purposes, especially in law enforcement, despite a lack of independent validation of the promised benefits to public safety and security. Although some rules such as the General Data Protection Regulation and the Law Enforcement Directive are in force, a concrete legal framework addressing the use of facial recognition technology (FRT) in Europe does not exist so far. Given the fact that FRT is processing extremely sensitive personal data, does not always work reliably, and is associated with risks of unfair discrimination, a general ban on any use of artificial intelligence for automated recognition of human features at least in publicly accessible spaces has been demanded. Against this background, the chapter adopts a fundamental rights perspective, and examines whether and to what extent a government use of FRT can be accepted under European law.

Chapter 4 considers the human rights relevant to research using linked data without consent; how these rights come into tension with each other and other relevant interests; and how these tensions should be considered and resolved. It notes the emphasis placed in the West on civil and political rights, such as the right to privacy, and the lack of attention to economic, social, and cultural rights, such as the right to health, and how this has resulted in an unbalanced approach to the regulation of research.

Chapter 4 considers the human rights relevant to research using linked data without consent; how these rights come into tension with each other and other relevant interests; and how these tensions should be considered and resolved. It notes the emphasis placed in the West on civil and political rights, such as the right to privacy, and the lack of attention to economic, social, and cultural rights, such as the right to health, and how this has resulted in an unbalanced approach to the regulation of research.

Argued October 17, 1967.Decided December 18, 1967.

Mr. Justice CAPERS delivered the opinion of the Court.1

We are not precisely told how Charles Katz, the petitioner, came to the FBI’s attention as someone involved in illegal gambling. But clearly by early 1965, the FBI considered the petitioner a person worth keeping an eye on. What we are told is that starting around February 4, 1965, FBI agents began tailing the petitioner, and continued tailing him for about two weeks. Their surveillance of the petitioner, presumably without his knowledge, revealed that the petitioner had a daily habit of making telephone calls from a particular row of telephone booths on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Further investigation, presumably through the telephone company, revealed that the petitioner’s calls were placed to a number in Massachusetts, which number the FBI traced to a known gambler. Armed with this information, but lacking a warrant, the FBI secretly placed a recording device on top of the bank of phones the petitioner had been using.

Argued December 13, 1971.Reargued October 11, 1972.Decided January 22, 1973.

Justice MURRAY, concurring in the judgment.1

Since 1854, Texas, like many other American jurisdictions, has made it a crime to procure or attempt to procure an abortion, except with respect to “an abortion procured or attempted by medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother.” Tex. Penal Code Arts. 1191–94, 1196 (1961). Petitioner Jane Roe is an unmarried woman living in Dallas County, Texas. She alleges that, unmarried and pregnant, she sought to terminate her pregnancy by an abortion “performed by a competent, licensed physician, under safe, clinical conditions.” She was unable to secure a “legal” abortion in Texas because her life did not appear to be threatened by the continuation of her pregnancy. Lacking the resources to travel to another jurisdiction to secure a legal abortion under safe conditions, she was forced to continue her pregnancy.

Argued March 26, 2003.Decided June 26, 2003.

Justice ROBINSON delivered the opinion of the Court.***

This case requires us to decide whether Texas may criminalize consensual intimate sexual behavior between two men. We apply intermediate scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause because the Texas law uses a person’s sex to determine the scope of his sexual liberty. Texas has fallen far short of establishing the requisite “exceedingly persuasive justification” to justify this incursion on personal liberty. See, e.g., United States v. Virginia 518 U.S. 515 (1996).

Argued December 12, 1967.Decided June 10, 1968.

Mr. Chief Justice WARREN1 delivered the opinion of the Court.

Is the police practice known as “stop and frisk” constitutional? This case presents frisky questions about the power of police to cop a feel. Our decision is a minstrelsy in three acts, with elements of burlesque.

Argued November 2, 1999.Decided January 12, 2000.

Justice L. SONG RICHARDSON delivered the opinion of the Court*

The issue in this case is whether a person’s sudden and unprovoked flight from a clearly identifiable police officer, who is patrolling a high crime area, is sufficiently suspicious, without more, to justify a temporary investigatory stop pursuant to Terry v. Ohio. We hold that it is not.

When a few years ago the discussion of how to deal with the increasing digital interception of private communications started, the call for a new legal instrument quickly erupted. However, this is not a blind spot of international law. The Human Rights Committee has used cyber-related developments as an opportunity to unpack the right to privacy in the context of its state reporting procedure. The chapter describes and systemises the Committee’s interpretation of Article 17 with respect to digital surveillance, meta data retention and foreign intelligence cooperation. It demonstrates that the Covenant provides the necessary legal ground to confront new technological challenges without ignoring the exigencies of the altering security situation. The Committee, having identified various shortcomings in national legal frameworks, has specified the necessary safeguards to effectively protect the right to privacy against arbitrary interference. It has also clarified the territorial scope of protection, which is not limited to domestic measures but extends to transnational surveillance and digital intelligence-sharing. The chapter concludes by describing new issues which the Committee will need to consider in the future, and makes recommendations for the conceptualisation of the right to privacy in the digital age more generally.

Sipple v. Chronicle Publishing Co. denied a right to privacy claim of a man who had been “outed” as gay in newspaper articles that reported on his intervention in thwarting an assassination attempt on the life of President Gerald Ford. The court ruled that Sipple could not prove the elements of the privacy tort of public disclosure of private facts because his sexual orientation had not been kept completely secret from friends and acquaintances in San Francisco, although he has not disclosed his orientation to his family. The feminist rewritten opinion reshapes the right of privacy claim to protect LGBT plaintiffs, arguing that permitting limited disclosure is crucial to give such individuals a measure of control over their most intimate information. The feminist approach takes into account constitutional principles of equality and freedom of association when interpreting the scope of the right to privacy, paying close attention to context and the particular interests at stake. The accompanying commentary paints a portrait of Sipple as an involuntary “gay hero” whose life was upended by publicity and reflects on the limitations of law as a vehicle of liberation.