Joint Investigation Teams collaboration platform

PURPOSE: to enable effective and efficient cooperation, communication and exchange of information and evidence between members of a Joint Investigation Team (JIT), representatives of international judicial authorities, Eurojust, Europol, OLAF and other relevant EU bodies and organisations.

LEGISLATIVE ACT: Regulation (EU) 2023/969 of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a collaboration platform to support the functioning of joint investigation teams and amending Regulation (EU) 2018/1726.

CONTENT : the Joint investigation teams (JITs) bring together – for a limited time period – authorities from two or more EU and possibly third countries for specific cross-border criminal investigations. Members of these teams can exchange evidence directly with one another, without the need for traditional judicial cooperation procedures.

JITs have proved essential in improving judicial cooperation in the investigation and prosecution of cross-border crime, such as cybercrime, terrorism and serious and organised crime, by reducing time-consuming procedures and formalities between members of a JIT. There is an urgent need for a collaboration platform that enables JITs to communicate effectively and exchange information and evidence securely, to ensure that those responsible for the most serious crimes can be held to account quickly.

This Regulation establishes an IT platform (JITs collaboration platform), to be used on a voluntary basis, to facilitate the cooperation of competent authorities participating in joint investigation teams (JITs).

The purpose of the JITs collaboration platform will be to facilitate:

- the coordination and management of a JIT, through a set of functionalities that support the administrative and financial processes within the JIT;

- the rapid and secure exchange and temporary storage of operational data, including large files, through an upload and download functionality;

- secure communications through a functionality that covers instant messaging, chats, audio-conferencing and video-conferencing;

- the traceability of exchanges of evidence through an advanced logging and tracking mechanism which allows all evidence exchanged, including its access and processing, through the JITs collaboration platform to be kept track of.

The platform will be connected to the IT tools used by the authorities participating in the JITs. Use of the platform will be strongly encouraged but will remain voluntary.

In addition, this Regulation:

-lays down rules on the division of responsibilities between the JITs collaboration platform users and the agency responsible for the development and maintenance of the JITs collaboration platform;

- sets out conditions under which the JITs collaboration platform users may be granted access to the JITs collaboration platform;

- lays down specific data protection provisions needed to supplement the existing data protection arrangements and to provide for an adequate overall level of data protection, data security and protection of the fundamental rights of the persons concerned.

The EU Agency for the operational management of large-scale IT systems in the area of freedom, security and justice, eu-LISA, will be responsible for designing, developing and operating the platform. eu-LISA will take the necessary technical and organisational measures to ensure a high level of cybersecurity of the JIT collaboration platform and the security of the data on that platform, in particular with a view to guaranteeing the confidentiality and integrity of the operational and non-operational data stored in the centralised information system.

ENTRY INTO FORCE: 6.6.2023.