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Central authority

Definition

The government body designated under an MLAT or domestic law to send and receive formal mutual legal assistance requests. In the US this is the Department of Justice Office of International Affairs; in the UK it is the Home Office; in India it is the Ministry of Home Affairs (via the nodal agency for the specific treaty).

Related terms

Article 29 preservation request
An expedited mechanism under the Budapest Convention allowing a signatory state to ask another signatory to preserve specific computer data for at...
Budapest Convention
The Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime (2001), the first binding international treaty on cyber offences. Requires signatory states to criminalise illegal...
Chain of custody (cross-border)
The documented record of every person who handled digital evidence from its original collection in a foreign jurisdiction through its transfer, receipt,...
G7 24/7 Network
An informal around-the-clock contact network originally established by G7 countries and now including additional states, allowing law enforcement to request urgent informal...
Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT)
A bilateral or multilateral treaty under which signatory states agree to assist each other in gathering evidence for criminal investigations. MLATs define...

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