The Alicante court recently handed a three-month prison sentence to a neighbor accused by Microsoft of uploading child pornography to a cloud account. The judgment diverges from the prosecutors’ initial request, which had sought a five-year term. The court explained that the charges were not proven to involve disclosure to third parties, a point raised by the defense attorney Francisco Moreno Arranz. In the final ruling, the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office had asked for a longer penalty, but the court imposed a shorter sentence than even the prosecutors sought.
Following the publication of the case, warnings emerged from the United States when Microsoft’s systems detected that the neighbor’s OneDrive account contained files depicting minors in sexual content. The company reported the findings to authorities, initiating official action. Spanish law enforcement, including the National Police Technological Crimes Group, conducted a search at the suspect’s residence with a warrant issued by the court in Alicante.
Investigators noted that the downloads occurred between January and December 2018, with the use of various file-sharing programs to obtain photographs and videos involving underage individuals. The materials included explicit sexual content that involved minors, whether alone or in conjunction with other parties. The verdict did not establish that the defendant knew every time a file was downloaded that it would become available on a shared server. The registry specifically contained video and image files described as extremely harmful to the sexual welfare of apparent minors.
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The court took into account the accused’s statements admitting that the material had been downloaded. It also considered the testimonies of police officers who investigated the case and seized items related to pedophilic material. Law enforcement noted that hundreds of files were found on the suspect’s mobile device, though those files are no longer present in the cloud account.
In its judgment, the Chamber observed that the officers who conducted the search and the technicians who examined the suspect’s devices conceded there was no evidence that the material was shared with third parties. It stated that there was no proven motive or intentional act showing deliberate distribution of the material, and it emphasized that the material may have been for personal use rather than for public dissemination. The court concluded that the crime of possession of pedophilic material had been met, but not the element of distribution.
The defendant argued that the files were kept solely for personal use and that he did not realize, at the time of downloading, the possibility of sharing them with other users. This contributed to the court’s determination that the offense was possession rather than distribution. The judges pointed out that one police officer had admitted the existence of tools capable of determining file sharing, but in this case no such evidence was available to prove that the files had been actively disseminated.
The outcome underscores the distinction between possessing illegal material and knowingly distributing it. It also highlights how authorities rely on evidence of user behavior and network activity to establish intent and scope of access. The case illustrates the careful calibration courts apply when considering the balance between personal possession and potential harm caused by sharing explicit content involving minors. [Citation: Court records, Alicante, authorities and Microsoft filing]