SIRIUS is an EU-funded project that helps law enforcement and judicial authorities access cross-border electronic evidence in the context of criminal investigations and proceedings. Co-implemented by Europol and Eurojust, in close partnership with the European Judicial Network, the SIRIUS project is a central reference point in the EU for knowledge sharing on cross-border access to electronic evidence.
More than half of all criminal investigations today include a cross-border request to access electronic evidence (such as data from messaging or email services, or social media). The SIRIUS project helps investigators cope with both the complexity and volume of information in a rapidly changing online environment. The project provides products such as standardised guidelines on cooperation processes between competent authorities and specific service providers (SPs). Other services SIRIUS provides includes investigative tools and contact details for SPs, and SIRIUS also facilitates opportunities to share experiences with peers, both online and in person.
The SIRIUS project serves as a go-to point for obtaining electronic data from SPs based in other jurisdictions. SIRIUS provides a restricted platform for sharing knowledge and best practices for both the law enforcement and judicial communities. The SIRIUS project maintains an up-to-date repository of contact details of over 1000 companies; focused on smaller, hard to find or sometimes inaccessible, SPs. Competent authorities are therefore able to retrieve multiple addresses in a single transaction to deal more efficiently with complex and large volumes of information.
SIRIUS products and services can be accessed via the Europol Platform for Experts (EPE). Its resources are available to law enforcement and judicial authorities from all EU Member States, as well as to non-EU countries with an operational agreement with Europol or with Eurojust. The SIRIUS community on the EPE represents all 27 Member States, promoting cooperation and support within the European Union.
Created as an internal project by Europol in 2017, SIRIUS has focused on providing innovative resources, to train law enforcement and judicial authorities in an engaging way. The SIRIUS Project initially started as a cooperation initiative between the US and the EU in the field of cross-border access to electronic evidence. From 2018 it has been funded by the European Commission. In 2020, Eurojust became a full partner to include judicial authorities in the quest to support EU Member States in obtaining better access to electronic evidence across borders. In the same year, the project launched an interactive video game, created in partnership with CENTRIC, taking the player through a terrorism investigation to learn more about lawful data requests. SIRIUS Game v.2 is now available, and is one of the most true-to-life simulations for lawful data requests. Members of the SIRIUS platform on the EPE can access resources on the go, thanks to the SIRIUS App available on Android and iOS. SIRIUS is dedicated to shedding light into the access and use of electronic evidence in criminal investigations in the EU, and produces to this effect an annual Digital Evidence Situation Report.
SIRIUS will continue to provide high quality training through the CEPOL platform and in person, as well as innovative tools to assist with online investigations. The project also maintains up-to-date guidelines reflecting the latest changes in law enforcement policies of major online service providers. SIRIUS will build further on its strong partnership with international partners, such as the UNODC, the UNCTED, and the FBI, to continue expanding the international reach of the project.
SIRIUS achievements in numbers:
- actively supported 48 live investigations;
- created a Single Point of Contact (SPoC) Network to support cross-border investigations;
- community expanded to over 8 000 members;
- over 2 300 members of judicial authorities and law enforcement have received training;
- created 74 OSP-specific guidelines;
- 52 Country Fiches;
- 13 Quarterly Reviews;
- 5 Annual Reports on topics of interest to cross-border access to electronic evidence;
- 52 tools.
SIRIUS SPoC network:
This network of experts in lawful data requests promotes best practices, and encourage countries to set up their own SPoC. SPoCs are designated persons, units or institutions who centralise, review and submit requests from governmental authorities to SPs. Currently, 36 law enforcement agencies from 25 countries are a part of this network. The benefits of joining this network are, among others:
- improvement in the quality of requests for voluntary cooperation
- the efficiency, success rate and response time
- facilitate authentication
- builds mutual trust
- fewer push-backs
If you would like to get in touch, or if you would like to join the SIRIUS platform, please contact sirius@europol.europa.eu. Judicial authorities (prosecutors, investigative judges, judges etc) can apply for membership contacting sirius.eurojust@eurojust.europa.eu. Please note that the SIRIUS platform on the EPE is restricted to law enforcement and judicial authorities.
The SIRIUS project has received funding from the European Commission’s Service for Foreign Policy (FPI) under contribution agreement No PI/2020/417-500.
