Rights Court Backs RFE/RL Journalist in Case to Protect Phone Data From Ukrainian Officials 

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled in favor of a journalist from RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service who has battled against the handover of her smartphone data to authorities in what the court agreed is an essential defense of a free press and privacy in democratic society. 

Natalia Sedletska, who hosts the award-winning investigative TV program "Schemes," has been locked in a three-year effort to protect her phone data from seizure by Ukrainian prosecutors investigating a leak of state secrets nearly four years ago.  The ECHR concluded that Sedletska should be protected from the data search under Article 10 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and stressed the importance of protection of sources for a functioning free press.  "[T]he court is not convinced that the data access authorization given by the domestic courts was justified by an 'overriding requirement in the public interest' and, therefore, necessary in a democratic society," the decision read.