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Dutch authorities allegedly seize VPN server without a warrant — company claims that law enforcement will return it after analyzing the device fully (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 6 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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The authorities apparently got tired of asking and just went in themselves.

Canada-based Windscribe, a VPN provider, just said that one of its European servers has been allegedly seized by Dutch authorities without a warrant. According to the company’s post on X, law enforcement said that they will return it to the service provider after they “fully analyze it.” It’s unclear why law enforcement impounded just a single rack from Windscribe’s cabinet, but the VPN provider said that it only uses RAM disk servers, meaning anyone who would look through the installed SSDs would only find a stock Ubuntu install on it, so the servers shouldn't hold any trackable data.

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[–] 55 points 6 months ago (2 children)

https://repository.tilburguniversity.edu/bitstreams/97187bcf-4ad2-402c-ac05-e565346d09b6/download

EU has similar laws and Dutch law allows for striking illegally collected evidence if the infringement was severe

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  • [–] 19 points 6 months ago* (1 child)

    The EU doesn’t have laws. It has directives and regulation. These are converted into law by member states.

    The EU doesn’t have any regulation or directives about the inadmissibility of evidence; that is a national concern. The only area the EU has directives for regarding evidence is the cross-border admissibility of evidence from one country being accepted in another.

    This is in line with the principle of subsidiarity, which means the EU only concerns itself with trans-European issues.

    This is technically correct, the best kind of correct.

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  • [–] 12 points 6 months ago

    EU Regulations are directly applicable to all member states, so its not needed to transpose those into domestic law for them to be used. Some countries' constitutional setup mess with this(like the uk eh pre-brexit I guess), but in general regulations are as important if not more than domestic law.

    Directives can be directly used in domestic courts but only under certain conditions. The defendant/respondant needs to be a public body and the transposition deadline must have passed. Its basicly 'you failed to implement it in time — tough'. Also if they're not implemented correctly. But in general yes, they're only instructions for the members to pass domestic legislation.

    I think even on a technicality both are law. Sorry if this was a bit padantic.

    oh and yes I'm not aware of any EU legislation on admissibility of evidence. But, not really my area :/ I think there have been proposals for cross-border stuff but can't remember what became of that. If you know any in force i'd be interested in reading that? thanks

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  • [–] -2 points 6 months ago

    Conspiracy brain says this was deliberately done to make any evidence inadmissible and key evidence gathered without a warrant would result in an acquittal with an unlikely second trial for fear of double jeopardy.

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