The article is devoted to revealing the legal nature of access to personal data stored on mobile phones during searches, inspections and its subsequent use in criminal proceedings, as well as the necessary procedural safeguards, from the perspectives of de jure, de facto and de lege ferenda, in the light of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. The relevance of this research is indicated by the fact that the vast amount of information – including communications data – stored on modern mobile phones, the relatively easy access to it, and the ability to identify and retrieve information stored remotely (for example, in cloud storage) via access to the relevant programmes and applications on the mobile phone, significantly broadens the scope of potential interference with the right to respect for privacy (including the secrecy of correspondence). This necessitates a shift in perspective regarding the standards and procedural safeguards that must be ensured when accessing information on mobile phones seized during a search of a person’s home or other premises. The systematic analysis of the current provisions of criminal procedural law carried out in this study has revealed a lack of a sufficient and precise legal framework on this issue, one that would take into account both the nature of the procedural actions being carried out and the necessary safeguards against arbitrariness – above all, deliberate judicial control over interference with the relevant fundamental right. Indeed, the inspection of computer data introduced in 2022 does not require separate judicial authorisation and, moreover, does not cover actions involving the search for and copying of information from computer systems. The closing section of the article supports the idea, put forward in the academic literature, of introducing a new investigative measure – the so-called ‘digital search’. Alongside this, amendments are also proposed to the current criminal procedure legislation regarding the expansion of the list of information to be specified in the motion and ruling authorising a search, as well as the provision for the possibility of challenging it in accordance with the procedure set out in Articles 303–307 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, against actions by the prosecution to identify, copy and seize information from mobile phones