The BGH ruled that chat history seized by covertly linking a device is inadmissible

Assessment

The published headnote of 3 StR 495/25 states that covert attachment to Telegram chats "without involvement of the information service provider or user" is Quellen-TKÜ, that "only content that arose from the time of the judicial order may be accessed," and that collection beyond that "leads in the individual case to the unusability of the content collected." On the facts, chats from 26 November 2021 to 20 March 2022 were held unlawfully obtained and the conviction on the counts that relied on them was set aside. The ruling is confined to history; post-order content remains admissible under a valid §100a order.