Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT)
Definition
A bilateral or multilateral treaty under which signatory states agree to assist each other in gathering evidence for criminal investigations. MLATs define the procedures, timescales, and dual-criminality conditions for cross-border evidence requests. They are the primary formal channel for obtaining evidence held by foreign providers or located on servers abroad.
Related terms
- Chain of custody
- The documented chronological record of who collected, handled, transferred, and examined a piece of evidence. For digital evidence, chain of custody includes...
- Budapest Convention
- The Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime (2001), the first binding international treaty on cyber offences. Requires signatory states to criminalise illegal...
- CLOUD Act
- The Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act (US, 2018). Clarifies that US service providers must comply with valid US legal process...
- Lawful interception
- Court-authorised real-time capture of the content of communications in transit, such as telephone calls, emails, or instant messages. Requires a higher legal...
- 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...
- Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023 (BSA)
- India's current evidence statute, which replaced the Indian Evidence Act 1872. Section 63 of the BSA governs electronic records and requires a...
- Blockchain analytics
- The use of tools such as Chainalysis, Elliptic, or CipherTrace to trace cryptocurrency fund flows across a public ledger. Because most public...
- Bulletproof hosting
- Hosting providers, typically in jurisdictions with weak law enforcement cooperation, that explicitly or implicitly ignore takedown requests and abuse complaints. Dark web...
- Central authority
- The government body designated under an MLAT or domestic law to send and receive formal mutual legal assistance requests. In the US...
- 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,...
- Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)
- 18 U.S.C. § 1030, the primary US federal computer crime statute. Criminalises unauthorised access to protected computers, data theft, system damage, and...
- Computer Misuse Act (CMA)
- UK statute enacted in 1990 and substantially amended in 2006 and 2015. Creates three base offences (unauthorised access, access with further intent,...
Explained in these topics
- Computer Crime Statutes and Global Legal FrameworksA bilateral or multilateral agreement under which states assist each other in criminal investigations by executing search warrants, preserving evidence, and sh...
- Cross-Border Evidence and Mutual Legal AssistanceA formal bilateral or multilateral agreement between states that obligates each party to assist the other in gathering evidence for criminal investigations. ML...
- Dark Web Marketplaces and Criminal InfrastructureA bilateral or multilateral treaty through which one country can formally request evidence or investigative assistance from another. Most dark web investigatio...
- Lawful Access, Interception Law and Privacy ProtectionsA bilateral or multilateral treaty under which one country's judicial authorities may formally request another country to gather and transmit evidence. The sta...
- Legal and Ethical Foundations of Cyber InvestigationsA bilateral or multilateral agreement between countries that establishes a formal process for sharing evidence and judicial assistance across borders. MLATs ar...
- Legal and Jurisdictional Frameworks for Mobile and Network EvidenceA bilateral or multilateral treaty under which signatory states agree to assist each other in gathering evidence for criminal investigations. MLATs define the...
- What Is Cyber ForensicsA bilateral or multilateral treaty allowing governments to request and exchange evidence for criminal investigations across national borders. MLATs are the pri...