The Provincial Court of Barcelona considers that hacking the mobile phones of the protesters arrested in Urquinaona violated their fundamental rights

The Provincial Court of Barcelona considers that hacking the mobile phones of one of the demonstrators arrestes during the protests agaoinst the sentence of the 1 October referendum, authorised by the judge, lacked proportionality and constituted a violation of his fundamental right to the inviolability of communications. The Court argues that the police did not have any evidence to believe that the detainee was connected in any way to criminal actions that were carried out those days, and that there was not enough motivation to carry out this investigation. Hacking his mobile phone would allow the police to intercept all of the phone’s data and give them access to his messaging applications. The result of the decision is that the material obtained in this way will not be able to be used in the case against the demonstrator accused of public disturbance and of attacking authority. The Alerta Solidària lawyers group confirms that the Court has expressed the same opinion regarding several other people detained during those days.