Simson Garfinkel has an excellent article in December ACM Queue about the so-called “DOMEX” IC directive. In the article Simson states:

“Automated DOMEX software, however, actually has the power to improve privacy - not so much for the general public, but for people who are targets of investigation. Today there are far more disk drives to be analyzed than there are examiners to work with them. The result is delays that can both dangerously impede an investigation and damage the civil liberties of innocent suspects.”

I found this statement particularly interesting because normally one does not think of automated software as privacy enhancing but rather the opposite particularly when it comes to harvesting.

The proof remains to be seen by me how this will enhance privacy since privacy by definition means seclusion and isolation. We will just have to wait and see how this brave new technology (and policy) plays out.