Privilegiul contra autoincriminării şi criptografia

The privilege against self-incrimination and cryptography

George ZLATI

Avocat - Baroul Cluj

Abstract

In this article the author has analised the relantionship between the privilege against self-incrimination and data encryption. Given the complexity of the subject in question, the author tried an in-depth analysis, using as starting point the European Court of Human Rights case law regarding self-incrimination.

Taken into consideration the reasoning drawn from the various cases brought before the European Court of Human Rights, the author tried to settle the issue regarding the scope of the privilege by reference to different situations such as: compelling a person to hand over the decryption key or to decrypt the information by himself and then to hand over the content in a readable format.

The conclusion was that the privilege against self-incrimination applies also in the context of computer data encryption/ decryption. The author also...