Privacy risks caused by the Swedish Police use of IMSI-catchers in a democratic society

Abstract: For over a decade, the Swedish government has debated the Swedish Police Authority, starting now, the Swedish Police, usage of IMSI-catchers, without finding a solution that provides a formal statute that balances crime-fighting and caring for a natural person's integrity. By IMSI-catchers, the author of this paper refers to the man-in-the-middle attack device that, among other things, can listen to SMS and phone calls in plaintext. By personal integrity, the author refers to article 3 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The scientific community has agreed that mobile networks before 5G are susceptible to IMSI-catchers. However, 5G has significantly hardened its protection against IMSI-catchers. Therefore, to cover all the current mobile networks (e.g., 5G, 4G, 3G, and 2G). This study aims to examine: (1) what IMSI-catcher attack the Swedish Police can perform in 5G and (2) what privacy risks the Swedish Police use of IMSI-catchers can cause a natural person who communicates within current mobile networks. More specifically, the objective is to identify privacy risks and concerns likely to occur due to the Swedish Police surveillance tactics with IMSI-catchers in a democratic society such as Sweden. By a democratic society, the author refers to a state governed by political freedoms and legal equality. To that end, a systematic literature review and studying traditional caselaw materials (e.g., existing laws, previous cases, and authoritative materials) are employed to identify IMSI-catcher attacks in 5G and illustrate their privacy risks. Despite 5G's improvements of the paging procedure and the 5G-Authentication and Key Agreement" (AKA) Authentication protocol, the results showed that the protection against IMSI-catchers in 5G has not improved to any noticeable degree compared to older (e.g., 4G, 3G, 2G) mobile networks. Furthermore, regarding privacy risks, the results strongly suggest that surveillance by a government representative without impartial oversight puts individuals' intellectual privacy (e.g., our ability to read, learn and debate freely) at risk. Consequently, a government's intrusion on a natural person's private affairs can likely shake the core foundation of a democratic society and change citizens' behaviors, such as hesitation to participate in political gatherings due to fear of reprimand consequences. Moreover, the results suggest that the Swedish Police use of IMSI-catchers could, based on the current national surveillance statutes, lead to unlawful use per the European Convention on Human Rights, an international human rights treaty.