Intervention of private communications without judicial authorisation

Last Monday, 5th of December, entered into force the last modification of the law of Criminal Procedure introduced by the Organic law 13/2015 and 41/2015. The most controversial point of the new legal text, is the authorisation to the Ministry of the Interior and, in their absence, to the Security Secretary in order to allow him to order to the police to tap private communications when it comes to emergencies and when the investigations are carried out for the investigation of offences relating to the activities of armed bands or terrorism.

These interventions shall be communicated immediately to the competent judge which may confirm them or revoke the agreement within a maximum of 72 hours. Furthermore, the law provides that electronic devices which have been tap must be related to the ones that the investigated has been using occasionally, but it is not clear what happens in the event of these electronic devices are being used by other people (for instance, a family computer). All of that, it could lead to the interference in people privacy because the police could choice discretionally who is investigated.