Il contributo è pubblicato nel n. 3/2016 della nostra Rivista trimestrale. Clicca qui per accedervi.

This article is a partially modified version of the text of the meeting speech at the International Biennial Conference (Section V, Criminal Sciences, Evolutions and Tendencies in Contemporary Crimininal Law), Faculty of Law of the West University of Timişoara (Romania), 28 October 2016.

Abstract. The article discusses the issue of cyber investigations in a general perspective, identifying the elements that go beyond a specific national legislation. Three types of cyber investigations emerge (i.e. pretrial, reactive and reactive), contributing to outline a criminal system whose preventive and proactive character tend to increase. In addition, thanks to a reversal of perspective with respect to the traditional approach of the legal doctrine, rather than concentrating on the characteristics of digital evidence, the author focuses instead on the characteristics of the investigations aimed at gathering digital evidence. In particular, the main characteristics of these investigations (i.e. technical nature, transnationality and cooperation of private entities) are discussed and the fact that they can lead to structural changes of investigation activities is pointed out. Finally, the article identifies a new major challenge in automated investigations and proposes their bipartition in order to ensure the respect for fundamental rights.

TABLE OF CONTENTS: 1. Scene. – 2. The use of the Web for criminal purposes. – 3. Combating cybercrime: pretrial, reactive and proactive investigations. – 4. Key aspects of cyber investigations. – 4.1 Technical nature. – 4.2. Transnationality. – 4.2.1. Effects of diversity of criminal law between countries. – 4.2.2. The need of international cooperation. – 4.3 Cooperation of private entities. – 5. Conclusions: risks related to automated investigations.