Criminal justice authorities often possess valuable information that they believe may assist the authorities of another country in a criminal investigation, but of which these other authorities are not aware of. Parties to the Budapest Convention may share this type of information through Article 26 on “spontaneous information”:

“A Party may, within the limits of its domestic law and without prior request, forward to another Party information obtained within the framework of its own investigations when it considers that the disclosure of such information might assist the receiving Party in initiating or carrying out investigations or proceedings concerning criminal offences established in accordance with this Convention or might lead to a request for co-operation by that Party under this chapter…”.

The relevance of Article 26 has been increasing over time, including within the context of cases related to the dark web or to the sharing of data retrieved from encrypted communications.

The aim of the workshop is to identify current practices of using Article 26 of the Convention on Cybercrime.