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Eurojust retracts Skype wiretapping plans
VALENTINA POP
26.02.2009 @ 17:22 CET
EUOBSERVER
/ BRUSSELS – In an apparent U-turn, the EU's judicial cooperation body
has said it is not officially examining ways to wire-tap Skype and
other computer-to-
Eurojust on Wednesday (25 February) retracted previous statements
saying it was taking the lead in helping national authorities to
wiretap Skype conversations, saying they were issued "prematurely" and
were "incorrect".
National prosecutors and police have been having a hard time in trying to listen to Skype conversations (Photo: EUobserver.com)
In
a statement issued on Friday, Eurojust said it was appointing Italian
prosecutor Carmen Manfredda to head the team dealing with looking at
legal and practical matters on how to help national police and
prosecutors in wiretapping Skype and similar computer-to-
conversations.
The admission was immediately widely reported in European
newspapers. However, a subsequent statement, released on Wednesday
said:
"When requested, Eurojust could play an important role in overcoming
the technical and legal obstacles to the interception of internet
telephony systems, taking into account the various data protection
rules and civil rights."
In addition, its statement that Skype did not cooperate with Italian prosecutors also proved to be incorrect.
In fact, Ms Manfredda, a member of the Eurojust board, was only
"approached" by Italian anti-mafia prosecutors in this regard in 2006,
but no decision had been taken since.
Johannes Thuy, Eurojust's spokesman, could not be reached for further comments on why this communication error occurred.
For its part, Skype said it was glad the issue has been cleared up.
"We are pleased that Eurojust has clarified their previous statement
and has recognised our commitment to cooperate with law enforcement
authorities which Skype does as much as is legally and technically
possible. Skype looks forward to working more with Eurojust in the
future," Brian O'Shaughnessy, head of corporate communications at Skype
told this website.
Skype, a Danish-Swedish business developed by Estonian programmers
that was sold to E-Bay in 2005 and has over 350 million customers
worldwide, is said to be un-spyable by intelligence services.
Italian anti-mafia prosecutors requested Eurojust's help, pointing
out that criminals in Italy were increasingly making phone calls over
the internet in order to avoid getting caught through mobile
wiretapping.
Customs and tax police in Milan had overheard a suspected cocaine
trafficker telling an accomplice to switch to Skype in order to get
details of a 2kg drug consignment.
Bavarian authorities allegedly also attempted to wiretap Skype
conversations and commissioned an IT firm to do this, but were not
successful, according to documents obtained by Piraten Party, a
movement promoting Internet freedom.
The only way to wiretap computer-to-
the computers themselves, Andreas Popp from the German branch of the
Piraten Party told this website.
"But this does not only give access to the VoIP calls, with a few
clicks it gives access to the whole computer, making it possible to
copy any private data on the machine or even place fake evidence on
it," he noted.
EUobserver
* Eurojust supports wire-tapping of Skype conversations
Press Release
* Eurojust retraction
Tuesday 3 March 2009
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