Illegal processing of personal data raised in usurpation case

A question of illegal processing of personal data was raised on Friday at the Nicosia criminal court, during a trial within a trial in the case of a 49-year-old German woman who stands accused of having sold Greek Cypriot property in the north.

The procedure had been initiated at the request of the defence, which questioned the legality of the procedure for the arrest of its client and the subsequent search and examination of the electronic devices that were seized, as it claimed, without a warrant.

On Friday, defence lawyer Sotiris Argyrou informed the court that he had received information from an expert that the handwriting appearing on the consent document allegedly signed by the defendant, in both English and German, did not belong to her.

Argyrou added that he would be able to deliver the official report by Monday.

He also suggested extending the framework of the trial within a trial.

The prosecution representative, Anna Mattheou, asked the defence to clarify its position on whether the accused was not aware what she was giving consent to or if she signed the document after receiving assurances.

The president of the court said that the prosecution may need to examine the defence’s claim with its own expert, adding that the issue will be examined again if the need arises.

The defence then called a witness, namely the police officer who had examined a mobile phone and an external hard drive and had submitted a report on July 15, 2024.

The officer explained that he created a forensic copy of the mobile phone, extracted data and carried out an automated forensic data analysis. He also carried out a forensic analysis of the hard drive’s content.

He added that the data extracted from both devices was copied onto a new external drive.

Argyrou objected, saying that access to and processing of personal data from private conversations, according to a 2024 European court ruling, was only possible for serious crimes, which did not apply in the case of his client.

Mattheou said the aim of the process was to verify whether the data transfer process was legal and that nothing was prohibiting it.

The presiding judge said the examination of whether the data extraction was legal required the presentation of the results in order to determine any violations, therefore he accepted its presentation in court.

The witness presented two out of five electronic files included in the evidence for examination purposes in the trial within the trial.

Mattheou asked the court not to take into account mms-type messages with photos and calls.

According to the police officer, the data transferred from the defendant’s mobile phone included inter alia 5,196 contacts and 186,866 files/multimedia.

He said the phone user had the option to choose whether files from instant messaging applications would be automatically saved to the device’s memory.

The second folder contained 21 video files from the external hard drive.

The police officer showed one of the videos in which the defendant was presenting an apartment to a prospective client in German.

Cross-examining the witness, Argyrou asked whether he had checked if the defendant had selected the automatic photo saving setting on the device. The witness said she had not, adding that she had not opened any messages and the device was still in flight mode, therefore it was not connected to any network.

Asked if there was a way to determine which of the photos on the phone were from messages and which were taken by the defendant herself, the witness said that there was no reason for such an action because he only extracted the files stored in the device’s memory.

Furthermore, asked if he checked the origin of the photos that were extracted and handed over to investigators, the police officer said he did not know which photos the investigators chose for their evaluation.

The witness also said that the investigation was limited and only what had been requested by the investigators was being presented.

He added that the procedure was the same for all criminal cases and that, at the request of the investigator, the forensic analyst extracted and submitted the data he was authorised to extract, which was then evaluated by the investigators.

Concluding the cross-examination, Argyrou expressed the position that a court order should have been issued beforehand and that there should have been an independent supervisory authority that strictly limited access to data related to the case, adding that the forensic analyst should not have taken any action in the absence of an order.

The prosecution then called senior police officer Demetra Stavrou as a witness.

Stavrou said she had inspected the external hard drive that emerged after the forensic analysis to find data relevant to the case and subsequently prepared an action log.

She showed images included in folder with the content that had been extracted from the defendant’s mobile phone.

Stavrou said there were 50 images displaying advertising and other promotional activities.

The court requested that all of the photographs be submitted as a bundle by the next hearing, so that they could be brought to the attention of the defence and both sides could make a statement.

Proceedings will continue on April 16 at 10.30am.