A National Crime Agency (NCA) officer has denied deleting a key document related to Operation Venetic, the agency’s investigation into criminals using EncroChat encrypted devices, and has told a tribunal the failure to disclose another document was a “complete error.”
Emma Sweeting was giving evidence at an Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which is hearing legal challenges by 10 individuals on the use of encrypted conversations by the NCA from EncroChat, which resulted from a hack conducted by French law enforcement.
At the heart of the case are Targeted Equipment Interference (TEI) warrants, which the NCA obtained on March 25, 2020, in order to access up to 9,000 EncroChat devices in the UK and investigate the alleged owners of those devices….