비식별화된 통신사실확인자료의 제공 절차 도입을 통한 수사기관의 기본권 침해 최소화 방안

Recently, the Constitutional Court ruled that the provision of communication confirmation data for criminal investigation is unconstitutional under the Protection of Communications Secrets Act. The Protection of Communications Secrets Act provides that if the necessary requirements are met, the law enforcement agency can collect information such as the date of telecommunications by subscribers, the time that the telecommunications commence and end, and the communications number of outgoing and incoming call, etc. Prior to the ruling of the Constitutional Court, academia raised concerns about privacy and infringement of personal information self-determination, and urged the improvement of the provisions of the Protection of Communications Secrets Act. However, discussions on the improvement of the cell site investigation process seems to be inadequate, while the discussion of the academia has been focused on strengthening the requirements of requests for communication confirmation data. This study attempts to analyze the process of the existing cell site investigation method performed by the law enforcement agency, presents an example of the cell site information collected according to the current method, and explores the elements that could infringe the human rights and privacy. As a solution, this study proposes a transformation of the investigation paradigm. Specifically, first, after the investigation agency obtains the unidentified information from the communication service providers, then analyzes it and re-identifies only the information necessary for criminal investigation. In addition, this study suggests specific de-identification measures and legal improvement measures accordingly. To protect the human rights of the public, it is necessary to revise the Protection of Communications Secrets Act by taking into consideration both the strengthening of the requirements of the law and the paradigm shift of the cell site analysis and investigation.