Cross-border access to electronic evidence is becoming a major challenge for criminal investigations across Europe, Europol reports. The agency says that more than half of criminal investigations today include a request to obtain electronic evidence such as texts, emails or messages from applications. In many cases, the information sought may be located in a different country from the investigators requesting it. Europol highlights that obtaining electronic evidence is complicated by both legal and technical issues. Evidence may be stored in an unknown location, and the servers holding data can be spread across multiple countries. This can make it difficult to identify where information is held and how it should be accessed. The report also points to the lack of harmonised deadlines for dealing with such requests. As a result, investigators and authorities may face uncertainty about timing when trying to secure digital data across borders. The combination of legal complexity and the technical reality of how data is stored means that cross-border requests for electronic evidence are not straightforward. Europol presents these factors as among the key challenges affecting access to e-evidence in criminal matters. The Europol news release does not set out individual cases or specific enforcement outcomes, but focuses on the wider problem: as investigations increasingly rely on digital communications, systems for obtaining cross-border electronic evidence must cope with fragmented locations, complex jurisdictions and differing procedures.