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Multiple European law-enforcement agencies will cease utilizing Oxygen Forensics, a digital surveillance company embroiled in controversy over Russian ownership, following POLITICO's investigation that exposed its spying services to police forces across the continent. Romania's National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) disclosed its intent to terminate its contract with Oxygen Forensic's "detective" software, purchased through a Romanian distributor on August 27 for €13,000.

The agency declared that it had initiated necessary procedures to terminate contractual obligations regarding this product, asserting that its checks found no evidence of compromised data extracted or processed using Oxygen. Latvia's State Police suspended its use of the software for assessment purposes, emphasizing that its application was strictly controlled and isolated from employees' working computers.

In the United Kingdom, London's Metropolitan Police has halted its use of Oxygen and initiated a comprehensive review, while the National Police Chiefs' Council has encouraged other forces to conduct their own assessments. Oxygen Forensics, headquartered in Virginia, has been accused by U.S. prosecutors of being covertly owned and operated from Russia.

The company allegedly participated in EU-backed digital-evidence projects and supplied technology to European law enforcement agencies after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. While the Justice Department does not claim the software contained malicious code or was used to access customers' systems or data without authorization, political pressure is mounting for European governments to cease using the software and investigate potential exposure of sensitive information to Russia.