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.
- Type
- Bilateral or multilateral treaty between states
- Purpose
- Formal cross-border evidence and legal assistance requests
- Governs
- Procedures, timescales, dual-criminality conditions
- Common bottleneck
- Processing time, often months for a request
Common questions
Why do MLAT requests take so long?+
Each request passes through a central authority in both the requesting and requested country, is checked against dual-criminality and procedural requirements, and is queued alongside every other pending request. Investigators often wait months, which is a recognised weakness for time-sensitive digital evidence.
What has reduced reliance on MLATs for digital evidence?+
Instruments like the US CLOUD Act's executive agreements allow some providers or governments to exchange certain data more directly, bypassing the full MLAT process for a narrower set of requests. MLATs remain the default formal channel where no such agreement exists.
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
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