Federal government: 2020 hardly less telecommunications surveillance than in the previous year

In 2020, measures to monitor telephone and internet connections were ordered in Germany in a total of 5,222 proceedings in accordance with Section 100a of the Code of Criminal Procedure (StPO). This was announced by the Federal Office of Justice (BfJ) on Monday in the statistics on telecommunications surveillance and the collection of traffic data. Accordingly, this number has fallen by 0.23 percent compared to 2019. The number of surveillance orders in the course of criminal investigations was 17,731, around 2.7 percent below the previous year. At that time there were 18,223.

15 cases with “source TKÜ”

According to the Federal Office of Justice, the statistics show 98 orders in which an intervention in information technology systems for monitoring telecommunications (source TKÜ) took place. Of the 98 orders, 15 surveillances were carried out. Source TKÜ is the recording of communication directly at the source before any encryption. Among other things, so-called state trojans are used.

As the BfJ points out, the majority of the investigations concerned suspected crimes in relation to criminal offenses under the Narcotics Act. The statistics here show a total of 8117 cases. There were also surveillances related to fraud and computer fraud in 2960 cases. This is followed by gang theft (1746) and surveillance of suspected murder and manslaughter (1681).

Online searches were ordered in 10 proceedings in accordance with Section 100b StPO. Of a total of 23 initial and extension orders, only eight were carried out.

According to the statistics, most of the proceedings (1278) took place in Bavaria. It is followed by Hesse (698), Baden-Württemberg (579) and Lower Saxony (417). The fewest surveillances were carried out in the federal states of Brandenburg (90), Saarland (47) and Bremen (35).

(olb)