Key facts
- Romania's National Anticorruption Directorate is terminating its contract for Oxygen Forensics software.
- Latvia's State Police has suspended use of the software.
- London's Metropolitan Police has paused its use of Oxygen Forensics.
- U.S. prosecutors allege Oxygen's Russian owners concealed their control of the company after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
- Belgian Green MEP Saskia Bricmont is calling for European governments to stop using Oxygen Forensics.
Multiple European law-enforcement agencies are suspending or terminating their use of digital surveillance software from Oxygen Forensics following allegations that the company concealed its Russian ownership. The Virginia-based company has been accused by U.S. prosecutors of being secretly owned and operated from Russia, with its technology allegedly continuing to be developed and managed in Russia after Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Romania's National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) has initiated procedures to terminate its contract for Oxygen Forensic’s software, used for extracting and analyzing data from mobile phones. The agency purchased its most recent annual license for €13,000 on August 27. The DNA stated that while it had initiated termination procedures, its checks found no evidence that data extracted or processed using Oxygen had been compromised.
Latvia's State Police has suspended its use of the software while it assesses whether to continue using the technology, noting that its use was under strict control and isolated from employees' working computers. In Britain, London's Metropolitan Police has also paused its use and launched a full review, with the National Police Chiefs' Council encouraging other forces to conduct their own assessments.
POLITICO reported earlier this week that Oxygen Forensics participated in EU-backed digital-evidence projects and supplied technology to European law enforcement agencies. Other European countries that have purchased the services include Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland, and Hungary, though their police agencies have not yet responded to requests for comment. U.S. prosecutors do not allege that the software contained malicious code or was used to access customer data without authorization.
Belgian Green MEP Saskia Bricmont is urging European governments to immediately cease using Oxygen Forensics and investigate potential exposure of sensitive information to Russia. She criticized the European Commission for not acting on earlier warnings about Oxygen's alleged Russian links. A Commission spokesperson previously stated that Oxygen was not part of EU-backed consortiums like EVIDENCE and INSPECTr and received no EU funding, though the company was listed on their websites.