National legislation on electronic evidence to be aligned with international standards

Chișinău, September 23, 2026 – National legislation will be aligned with international cooperation standards concerning electronic evidence. Members of the Committee on National Security, Defence and Public Order approved the report on a bill providing for these measures. The document will be submitted for consideration in the first reading by the Parliament plenary.

The bill, drafted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, introduces legislative amendments aimed at reducing the time required by authorities to obtain electronic evidence held by service providers in other countries. The measures are aligned with the provisions of the Second Additional Protocol to the Convention on Cybercrime (Budapest Convention), which was ratified by the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova at the 24 August session.

Accordingly, the establishment of round-the-clock contact points in the Republic of Moldova is proposed, one within the Ministry of Internal Affairs and one within the General Prosecutor’s Office. The contact point within the Ministry of Internal Affairs will ensure international police cooperation, including the provision of technical assistance, the immediate preservation of computer data and support in locating wanted people. The contact point within the General Prosecutor’s Office will have exclusive responsibilities within the emergency mechanism: it will send, receive and coordinate requests for the expedited disclosure of stored computer data and will verify whether they meet the legal requirements before forwarding them to the competent prosecutor.

The rapid-response mechanisms may be applied only in emergency situations, which the bill explicitly defines as a significant and imminent risk to a person’s life or safety. Only in such situations will service providers be required to disclose the requested data within no more than 96 hours of receiving the request. Requests for letters rogatory or mutual legal assistance will also be examined and executed as a matter of priority, within the same 96-hour period.

The general rule on the transmission of data and the provision of mutual legal assistance remains unchanged. Computer data may be transmitted only after an official request for legal assistance has been accepted, through the competent central authorities — the General Prosecutor’s Office for requests submitted during the criminal investigation phase and the Ministry of Justice for those submitted during the trial and sentence enforcement phases.

The authors of the bill propose that the law enter into force on January 1, 2027, simultaneously with the entry into force of the ratified Protocol.

The Protocol was adopted in Strasbourg in 2022 and has been signed by around 50 states, which are at different stages of the ratification process. The European Commission recommends ratifying the Protocol, considering it an important step towards advancing the Republic of Moldova’s path to accession to the European Union.

Communication and Public Relations Department of the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova