Access to telecommunication data is an essential and powerful investigative tool in criminal justice. At the same time, the interception of such data can seriously affect individual privacy. The legal instruments and provisions that allow the gathering of these data are primarily the traditional rules on the interception of telecommunication based on the cooperation duties of telecommunication providers. The rules governing these interception techniques vary considerably among the national legal orders. This publication provides a comparative analysis as well as country reports on the following European legal orders, which form the basis of this comparison: Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

This publication is part of the »International Max Planck Information System for Comparative Criminal Law,« a project at the heart of the comparative legal research of the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law in Freiburg/Germany. A primary objective of this project is to develop a universal meta-structure of criminal law that can serve as the basis for the organization of material, enable systematic comparisons, and further the development of an international criminal law doctrine. Towards these ends, a pilot project was carried out to analyze, structure, and present the General Part of the criminal law in twelve legal systems (published in five volumes). In the meantime, the number of legal systems included in the study has grown considerably. First fruits of this expansion are presented here, with the publication of reports from Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, India, Iran, Japan, Romania, Russia, Switzerland, Uruguay, and the United States of America.

This publication is part of the International Max Planck Information System for Comparative Criminal Law, a project at the heart of the Institute's comparative legal research. One of its primary objectives is to develop a universal meta-structure of criminal law that can serve as the basis for the organization of material, enable systematic comparisons, and further the development of an international criminal law doctrine. In the meantime, the project is being continued in English, and the number of legal systems included in the study has grown considerably – with contributions from researchers at the Max Planck Institute as well as from external research partners. This volume contains fruits of this expansion (Bulgaria, Greece, Portugal, Thailand, Uganda) as well as translated, updated, and revised reports from the pilot project (Austria, France, Turkey).

This publication is part of the »International Max Planck Information System for Comparative Criminal Law«. One of its primary objectives is to develop a universal ›meta-structure of criminal law‹ that can serve as the basis for the organization of material, enable systematic comparisons, and further the development of an international criminal law doctrine. Towards these ends, a pilot project was carried out to analyze, structure, and present the general part of the criminal law in twelve legal systems. The results were published in five volumes from 2008 to 2010 (in German). In the meantime, the project is being continued in English, and the number of legal systems included in the study has grown considerably. This volume contains fruits of this expansion (Bulgaria, Greece, Portugal) as well as translated, revised reports from the pilot project (France, Korea, Sweden).

This publication is part of the International Max Planck Information System for Comparative Criminal Law, a project at the heart of the Institute's comparative legal research. One of its primary objectives is to develop a universal meta-structure of criminal law that can serve as the basis for the organization of material, enable systematic comparisons, and further the development of an international criminal law doctrine. A second goal of the project is to provide access to data from the participating legal systems in the form of country reports organized on the basis of the aforementioned universal meta-structure.

This publication is part of the »International Max Planck Information System for Comparative Criminal Law«. One of its primary objectives is to develop a universal meta-structure of criminal law that can serve as the basis for the organization of material, enable systematic comparisons, and further the development of an international criminal law doctrine. Towards these ends, a pilot project was carried out to analyze, structure, and present the general part of the criminal law in twelve legal systems. The results were published in five volumes from 2008 to 2010 (in German). In the meantime, the project is being continued in English, and the number of legal systems included in the study has grown considerably. This volume contains fruits of this expansion (Australia, Japan, Russia, Switzerland, Uganda) as well as a translated, revised report from the pilot project (Turkey).