Legal News of #Encrochat: Defence lawyers seek appeal of tribunal ruling on police EncroChat

Defence lawyers are seeking leave to appeal against a tribunal ruling that found the National Crime Agency had lawfully obtained warrants to access messages from 9,000 cryptophones used in the UK

Lawyers are seeking leave from the Court of Appeal (Civil Division) to challenge a decision by Britain’s most secret court that the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) acted lawfully when it accessed millions of intercepted messages and images from an encrypted phone network that police say was widely used by organised criminals.

Defence lawyers are seeking to overturn a ruling by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) that concluded the crime agency had lawfully obtained surveillance warrants to access supposedly encrypted messages sent by 9,000 UK users of the EncroChat phone network.

The IPT rejected claims that the NCA had failed in its duty of candour by not disclosing key facts to the independent judicial commissioner responsible for authorising the crime agency to obtain copies of EncroChat messages in the UK intercepted in a hacking operation by French and Dutch police.