Title: Building lawful interception capabilities: need for legal safeguards

Authors: Jari Raman

Addresses: Institute for Law and Informatics, Faculty of Law, University of Lapland, P.O. Box 122, FIN-96101, Rovaniemi, Finland

Abstract: The operational environment for lawful interception has changed due to the ongoing paradigm shift in communications. When circuit switching is giving away to packet switching, the fragile balance between the state and corporate interest and the rights and freedoms of the citizens is under pressure. Whereas the focus of regulation, political debate and research typically is on the prerequisites for the use of lawful interception by the authorities in the acquirement of information for the protection national security, for the prevention of crime and in criminal investigations, together with the authorisation and control of the use of lawful interception in courts and other judicial authorities, this paper focuses, instead, on the infrastructure on which the interception takes place. This paper analyses the need to complement the multifaceted regulation of lawful interception with elaborated provisions of law concerning the requirements for the design and development of lawful interception systems.

Keywords: lawful interception; security; crime prevention; IP; voice over internet protocol; voIP; safeguards; law enforcement; national security; criminal investigations.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPL.2009.024145

International Journal of Private Law, 2009 Vol.2 No.3, pp.305 - 315

Published online: 27 Mar 2009 *

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