The BKA linked a witness couple's WhatsApp accounts to a police computer during a voluntary phone inspection

Assessment

Netzpolitik quotes the case file: on 12 January 2020 the couple "voluntarily handed over their mobile phones for a short period" so messages from their daughter could be photographed, and "in the course of producing the photos, the computer-based application WhatsApp Web could be covertly activated via a website provided online by the BKA, so that the messages can be read on a BKA computer." The couple were questioned as witnesses, not suspects. The investigating magistrate at the BGH ruled on the measure on 9 July 2020 (2 BGs 468/20). ThreatPaper has not seen the file itself; the quotation is Netzpolitik's.