Legislation Update (Criminal Procedure Law)

New procedures for gathering evidence on computer crimes

Associate Professor Yoshiki OGAWA
(Research Staff, Faculty of Law)
(on 31 October 2011)

     On June 17, 2011, the Diet passed the act to amend parts of the Penal Code and other statutes for dealing with the sophistication of information processing. The act, which was enacted to ratify the Convention on Cybercrime (Council of Europe, 2001), adds provisions concerning the new procedures for gathering evidence on computer crimes to the Code of Criminal Procedure. The following describes the details of these provisions:

     (a) Investigative officers are permitted to copy to computers data from recording media connected to such computers via telecommunication lines (i) used for storing data prepared and updated on such computers or (ii) used for storing data to update and delete on such computers when a seizure warrant is issued for such computers. For example, investigative officers can copy document files prepared by a computer from data on storage servers storing the file when a seizure warrant designates such computer as the article to be seized. (Code of Criminal Procedure §§99 (2), 218 (2))

     (b) Judges are authorized to issue a seizure warrant with “copy order”. For example, the warrant permits investigative officers to require providers to copy data recorded on their server computers to CD-R. (Code of Criminal Procedure §§99 -2, 218 (1))

     (c) Investigative officers are permitted to copy data on electromagnetic recording media to other recording media and seize the media instead of seizing the original electromagnetic recording media, for example, copying data from a personal computer to CD-R and seizing the CD-R instead of seizing the personal computer, when a warrant is issued to permit the seizure of the electromagnetic recording media. (Code of Criminal Procedure §§110 -2, 222 (1))

     (d) When investigative officers seize electromagnetic recording media, they are permitted to require persons who are to undergo the measure to cooperate, for example, in the operation of computers. (Code of Criminal Procedure §§111 -2, 222 (1))

     (e) Investigative officers are permitted to require providers to store communication records for future seizure. (The period for saving records is up to 30 days and up to 60 days when a special necessity is recognized.) (Code of Criminal Procedure §197 (3))