With judgment no. 29131/2026, filed on 31 July 2026, the Sixth Criminal Division of the Italian Supreme Court addressed several key issues concerning the use of a computer trojan (captatore informatico) for interception.

The Court held that the trojan may be activated and deactivated intermittently. Where the law does not require the judge to predetermine the places and times of activation, the possibility of continuous monitoring does not mean that the device must remain continuously active.

Intermittent activation therefore does not, in itself, make the material obtained inadmissible.

There is, however, an important defence point: selecting the intervals in which monitoring is active may affect the completeness and context of the recorded conversations. The loss of potentially exculpatory material or the removal of conversations from their wider context does not automatically entail inadmissibility, but may affect reliability and evidential weight.

The Supreme Court also accepted the suspension of interception for several days, provided that the suspension is traceable and remains under judicial control. The Court further held that defects in the records required by Article 89 of the implementing provisions do not automatically lead to inadmissibility, since the grounds under Article 271 of the Code of Criminal Procedure are exhaustive.

The judgment thus distinguishes between judicial authorisation, technical execution and evidential assessment: not every technical irregularity results in exclusion of the evidence, but the traceability of the operations and the completeness of the material remain essential.

Italian Supreme Court, Criminal Division VI, judgment no. 29131/2026, hearing 28 May 2026, filed 31 July 2026.

Official source: Italian Supreme Court.
Case page and full judgment no. 29131/2026