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Federal Act
on the Intelligence Service
(Intelligence Service Act, IntelSA)

English is not an official language of the Swiss Confederation. This translation is provided for information purposes only and has no legal force.

of 25 September 2015 (Status as of 1 July 2021)

The Federal Assembly of the Swiss Confederation,

on the basis of Articles 54 paragraph 1, 123 paragraph 1 and 173 paragraph 2 of the Federal Constitution1,2
and having considered the Federal Council Dispatch dated 19 February 20143,

decrees:

1 SR 101

2 Amended by Annex No II 1 of the FA of 25 Sept. 2020 on the Approval and Implementation of the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism and its Additional Protocol and the Strengthening of Criminal Justice Instruments for combating Terrorism and Organised Crime, in force since 1 July 2021 (AS 2021 360; BBl 2018 6427).

3 BBl 2014 2105

Chapter 1 General Provisions and Principles governing Information Gathering

Art. 1 Subject matter  

This Act reg­u­lates:

a.
the activ­it­ies of the Fed­er­al In­tel­li­gence Ser­vice (FIS);
b.
co­oper­a­tion between the FIS and oth­er fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies, the can­tons, for­eign coun­tries and private in­di­vidu­als;
c.
polit­ic­al gov­ernance of the FIS and the con­trol and su­per­vi­sion of in­tel­li­gence activ­it­ies.
Art. 2 Aim  

This Act serves to pro­tect im­port­ant na­tion­al in­terests; its aim is

a.
to con­trib­ute to­wards safe­guard­ing Switzer­land’s demo­crat­ic and con­sti­tu­tion­al prin­ciples and pro­tect­ing the freedoms of its pop­u­la­tion;
b.
to in­crease the se­cur­ity of the Swiss pop­u­la­tion and of Swiss cit­izens abroad;
c.
to sup­port Switzer­land’s ca­pa­city to act;
d.
to con­trib­ute to­wards safe­guard­ing in­ter­na­tion­al se­cur­ity in­terests.
Art. 3 Safeguarding further important national interests  

In the event of a ser­i­ous and im­me­di­ate threat, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may de­ploy the FIS not only to pro­tect the na­tion­al in­terests men­tioned in Art­icle 2 but also:

a.
to pro­tect ba­sic con­sti­tu­tion­al or­der in Switzer­land;
b.
to sup­port Swiss for­eign policy;
c.
to pro­tect Switzer­land as a loc­a­tion for em­ploy­ment, busi­ness and fin­ance.
Art. 4 Authorities and persons subject to obligations  

This Act ap­plies to the fol­low­ing au­thor­it­ies and per­sons:

a.
fed­er­al and can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies that are giv­en the task of car­ry­ing out in­tel­li­gence activ­it­ies;
b.
fed­er­al and can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies and pub­lic and private or­gan­isa­tions, per­sons and en­tit­ies that hold in­form­a­tion rel­ev­ant to in­tel­li­gence mat­ters;
c.
private in­di­vidu­als who are re­quired to pass on in­form­a­tion rel­ev­ant to in­tel­li­gence mat­ters in terms of this Act.
Art. 5 Principles governing information gathering  

1 In or­der to carry out its tasks, the FIS shall gath­er in­form­a­tion from sources that are pub­licly and non-pub­licly ac­cess­ible.

2 For this pur­pose it shall use in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ures which do and do not re­quire au­thor­isa­tion.

3 In each case, it shall choose the in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure that:

a.
is most suit­able and ne­ces­sary for achiev­ing a spe­cif­ic in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing ob­ject­ive; and
b.
causes the least in­ter­fer­ence with the fun­da­ment­al rights of the per­sons con­cerned.

4 It may gath­er per­son­al data without this com­ing to the at­ten­tion of the per­sons con­cerned.

5 It may not gath­er or pro­cess any in­form­a­tion re­lat­ing to polit­ic­al activ­it­ies or the ex­er­cise of free­dom of speech, as­sembly or as­so­ci­ation in Switzer­land.

6 It may by way of ex­cep­tion gath­er in­form­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 5 about an or­gan­isa­tion or per­son and re­cord that in­form­a­tion in re­la­tion to a per­son if there are spe­cif­ic in­dic­a­tions that the per­son is ex­er­cising their rights in or­der to pre­pare for or carry out ter­ror­ist, es­pi­on­age or vi­ol­ent-ex­trem­ist activ­it­ies.

7 It shall de­lete data re­cor­ded in re­la­tion to a per­son once par­ti­cip­a­tion in the activ­it­ies men­tioned para­graph 6 can be ex­cluded, but one year at the latest after the in­form­a­tion has been re­cor­ded if no such activ­it­ies have been proven up to that time.

8 It may also gath­er and pro­cess in­form­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 5 about or­gan­isa­tions and groups on the watch list in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 72 or their mem­bers if the threats posed by these or­gan­isa­tions and groups can be as­sessed thereby.

Chapter 2 FIS Tasks and Cooperation

Section 1 Tasks, Protection and Security Measures, and Weapons

Art. 6 Tasks of the FIS  

1 The FIS shall gath­er and pro­cess in­form­a­tion for the fol­low­ing pur­poses:

a.
the early re­cog­ni­tion and pre­ven­tion of threats to in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity from:
1.
ter­ror­ism,
2.
es­pi­on­age,
3.
the pro­lif­er­a­tion of nuc­le­ar, bio­lo­gic­al or chem­ic­al weapons, in­clud­ing their de­liv­ery sys­tems, and all ci­vil­ian and mil­it­ary goods and tech­no­lo­gies re­quired to man­u­fac­ture such weapons (ABC pro­lif­er­a­tion) or the il­leg­al trade in ra­dio­act­ive sub­stances, war ma­ter­i­al and oth­er arma­ments,
4.
at­tacks on in­form­a­tion, com­mu­nic­a­tion, en­ergy, trans­port and oth­er in­fra­struc­tures that are es­sen­tial for the prop­er func­tion­ing of so­ci­ety, the eco­nomy and the state (crit­ic­al in­fra­struc­tures),
5.
vi­ol­ent ex­trem­ism;
b.
to identi­fy, ob­serve and as­sess events out­side Switzer­land that are of se­cur­ity-policy sig­ni­fic­ance;
c.
to safe­guard Switzer­land’s ca­pa­city to act;
d.
to safe­guard oth­er im­port­ant na­tion­al in­terests in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 3 where the Fed­er­al Coun­cil has is­sued a spe­cif­ic man­date to do so.

2 The FIS shall as­sess the threat situ­ation and in­form the fed­er­al agen­cies and can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­it­ies con­cerned reg­u­larly about any threats and about the meas­ures taken and planned in terms of this Act. If re­quired, it shall alert the state agen­cies re­spons­ible.

3 It shall, while pro­tect­ing its sources, in­form oth­er fed­er­al and can­ton­al agen­cies about events and in­tel­li­gence that are rel­ev­ant to the stat­utory tasks of these agen­cies in safe­guard­ing in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity.

4 It shall cul­tiv­ate in­tel­li­gence re­la­tions between Switzer­land and for­eign agen­cies.

5 It is re­spons­ible for provid­ing the in­tel­li­gence early warn­ing in or­der to pro­tect crit­ic­al in­fra­struc­tures.

6 It runs pro­grammes to provide in­form­a­tion on and raise aware­ness of threats to in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity.

7 It pro­tects its em­ploy­ees, its fa­cil­it­ies, its sources and the data that it pro­cesses.

Art. 7 Protective and security measures  

1 The FIS shall take meas­ures to guar­an­tee the pro­tec­tion, safety and se­cur­ity of its em­ploy­ees, fa­cil­it­ies and the data that it pro­cesses. To this end it may:

a.
carry out on its premises bag and per­son­al checks on:
1.
FIS em­ploy­ees,
2.
per­sons work­ing tem­por­ar­ily for the FIS,
3.
em­ploy­ees of com­pan­ies that provide the FIS with ser­vices on its premises;
b.
carry out checks of rooms and spaces in FIS fa­cil­it­ies to veri­fy wheth­er the reg­u­la­tions on pro­tect­ing clas­si­fied in­form­a­tion are be­ing com­plied with;
c.
mon­it­or archive rooms, strong rooms and stor­e­rooms and the ac­cess zones to the FIS premises us­ing video trans­mis­sion and re­cord­ing devices;
d.
op­er­ate tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions jam­mers in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 34 para­graph 1ter of the Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Act of 30 April 19974 on premises that it uses.

2 The FIS shall op­er­ate a se­cure com­puter net­work for its in­form­a­tion sys­tems that must in par­tic­u­lar be pro­tec­ted against ac­cess by un­au­thor­ised per­sons.

Art. 8 Weapons  

1 FIS em­ploy­ees may be is­sued with weapons for op­er­a­tions in Switzer­land if they are ex­posed to spe­cial dangers in the course of their ser­vice du­ties.

2 Armed em­ploy­ees may only use their weapons for self-de­fence or in emer­gen­cies and only in a man­ner ap­pro­pri­ate to the cir­cum­stances.

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine the cat­egor­ies of em­ploy­ee that may carry weapons and the train­ing that they re­quire.

Section 2 Cooperation

Art. 9 Cantonal executive authorities  

1 Each can­ton shall des­ig­nate an au­thor­ity to work with the FIS in im­ple­ment­ing this Act (the can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­ity). It shall en­sure that this au­thor­ity is able to carry out FIS as­sign­ments im­me­di­ately.

2 The FIS shall is­sue as­sign­ments to the can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­it­ies in writ­ing; in cases of ur­gency it may is­sue as­sign­ments verbally and con­firm them ret­ro­spect­ively in writ­ing.

Art. 10 Informing the cantons  

1 The Fed­er­al De­part­ment of De­fence, Civil Pro­tec­tion and Sport (DDPS) shall in­form the inter-can­ton­al con­fer­ences of gov­ern­ments reg­u­larly and in the event of in­cid­ents about its as­sess­ment of the threat situ­ation.

2 The FIS shall in­form the can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­it­ies about events that af­fect the tasks that they carry out.

Art. 11 Cooperation with the Armed Forces  

1 The FIS shall no­ti­fy the re­spons­ible agen­cies in the Armed Forces In­tel­li­gence Ser­vice and the Mil­it­ary Se­cur­ity Ser­vice about events that af­fect the tasks that they carry out.

2 It may work with the re­spons­ible agen­cies of the Armed Forces in re­la­tion to in­ter­na­tion­al mil­it­ary con­tacts, re­quest them for in­form­a­tion and is­sue them with as­sign­ments re­lated to in­ter­na­tion­al co­oper­a­tion.

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late:

a.
the co­oper­a­tion and ex­change of in­form­a­tion between the FIS and the re­spons­ible agen­cies of the Armed Forces In­tel­li­gence Ser­vice;
b.
the di­vi­sion of tasks between the FIS and the Mil­it­ary Se­cur­ity Ser­vice dur­ing peace sup­port or civil sup­port op­er­a­tions or act­ive ser­vice.
Art. 12 Cooperation with other countries  

1 The FIS may work with for­eign in­tel­li­gence ser­vices and se­cur­ity ser­vices in terms of Art­icle 70 para­graph 1 let­ter f in or­der to im­ple­ment this Act, in that it:

a.
re­ceives or passes on use­ful in­form­a­tion;
b.
holds joint tech­nic­al dis­cus­sions and con­fer­ences;
c.
car­ries out joint activ­it­ies to gath­er and eval­u­ate in­form­a­tion and to as­sess the threat situ­ation;
d.
pro­cures and passes on in­form­a­tion to the re­quest­ing state in or­der to as­sess wheth­er a per­son may work on clas­si­fied for­eign pro­jects re­lated to in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity or have ac­cess to clas­si­fied for­eign in­form­a­tion, ma­ter­i­als or fa­cil­it­ies;
e.
par­ti­cip­ates in terms of Art­icle 70 para­graph 3 in in­ter­na­tion­al auto­mated in­form­a­tion sys­tems.

2 It may in con­sulta­tion with the Fed­er­al De­part­ment of For­eign Af­fairs (FD­FA) post em­ploy­ees to Swiss rep­res­ent­a­tions abroad in or­der to pro­mote in­ter­na­tion­al con­tacts. These em­ploy­ees shall work dir­ectly with the re­spons­ible au­thor­it­ies of the host state and third coun­tries in or­der to im­ple­ment this Act.

3 The FIS is re­spons­ible for co­oper­a­tion with for­eign in­tel­li­gence ser­vices in or­der to carry out in­tel­li­gence tasks in terms of this Act.

4 The can­tons may work with the com­pet­ent for­eign po­lice au­thor­it­ies in or­der to deal with se­cur­ity is­sues in the bor­der zone.

Chapter 3 Information Gathering

Section 1 Information Gathering Measures not requiring Authorisation

Art. 13 Public sources of information  

Pub­lic sources of in­form­a­tion are in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
pub­licly ac­cess­ible me­dia;
b.
pub­licly ac­cess­ible re­gisters of fed­er­al and can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies;
c.
data col­lec­tions made pub­licly ac­cess­ible by private in­di­vidu­als;
d.
state­ments made in pub­lic.
Art. 14 Observation of public in generally accessible locations  

1 The FIS may ob­serve and make sound and im­age re­cord­ings of events and fa­cil­it­ies in pub­lic and gen­er­ally ac­cess­ible loc­a­tions. It may use air­craft and satel­lites for this pur­pose.

2 The ob­ser­va­tion and sound and im­age re­cord­ing of events and fa­cil­it­ies that fall with­in the private do­main are not per­mit­ted. Sound and im­age re­cord­ings that fall with­in the pro­tec­ted private do­main but which can­not be pre­ven­ted for tech­nic­al reas­ons must be des­troyed im­me­di­ately.

Art. 15 Human sources  

1 Hu­man sources are per­sons who:

a.
provide the FIS with in­form­a­tion or in­tel­li­gence;
b.
provide the FIS with ser­vices that as­sist in the ful­fil­ment of tasks in terms of this Act;
c.
sup­port the FIS in pro­cur­ing in­form­a­tion.

2 The FIS may pay hu­man sources ap­pro­pri­ately for their activ­it­ies. Where this is ne­ces­sary in or­der to pro­tect the sources or to gath­er fur­ther in­form­a­tion, the pay­ment shall not be re­garded as tax­able in­come or as in­come in terms of the Fed­er­al Act of 20 Decem­ber 19465 on Old-Age and Sur­viv­ors' In­sur­ance.

3 The FIS shall take the meas­ures re­quired to pro­tect the life and limb of hu­man sources. Such meas­ures may also be taken in re­spect of per­sons closely as­so­ci­ated with hu­man sources.

4 The Head of the DDPS may in spe­cif­ic cases au­thor­ise the FIS to provide hu­man sources with a cov­er story or an ali­as iden­tity on con­clu­sion of their co­oper­a­tion, if this is ne­ces­sary in or­der to pro­tect the life and limb of the per­sons con­cerned.

5 The meas­ures men­tioned in para­graphs 3 and 4 are lim­ited to the peri­od of ac­tu­al danger. By way of ex­cep­tion, a time lim­it may be dis­pensed with or a tem­por­ary meas­ure may be changed in­to a per­man­ent meas­ure if the risks to the per­sons con­cerned are par­tic­u­larly ser­i­ous and it must be ex­pec­ted that they will con­tin­ue to ap­ply.

Art. 16 Alerts on persons and property  

1 The FIS may ar­range for alerts to be is­sued in the com­pu­ter­ised po­lice search sys­tem in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 15 para­graph 1 of the Fed­er­al Act of 13 June 20086 on the Fed­er­al Po­lice In­form­a­tion Sys­tems (FPISA) and in the na­tion­al part of the Schen­gen In­form­a­tion Sys­tem in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 16 para­graph 2 FPISA in re­spect of per­sons and vehicles.

2 An alert in re­spect of a per­son or a vehicle is only per­mit­ted if there is reas­on to be­lieve that:

a.
the per­son con­cerned poses a spe­cif­ic threat to in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 6 para­graph 1 let­ter a;
b.
the vehicle is be­ing used by a per­son defined in let­ter a;
c.
the vehicle will be used for a dif­fer­ent spe­cif­ic threat to in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 6 para­graph 1 let­ter a;
d.
the where­abouts of a per­son or a vehicle must be es­tab­lished in or­der to safe­guard oth­er im­port­ant na­tion­al in­terests in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 3.

3 The alert may not be is­sued in or­der to mon­it­or the vehicle of a third party that be­longs to any of the pro­fes­sions men­tioned in Art­icles 171–173 of the Crim­in­al Pro­ced­ure Code (Crim­PC)7.

Section 2 Cover Stories and Alias Identities

Art. 17 Cover story  

1 The Dir­ect­or of the FIS may au­thor­ise FIS em­ploy­ees to be provided with a cov­er story so that they are not re­cog­nised as be­long­ing to the FIS.

2 In con­sulta­tion with or at the re­quest of a can­ton, the Dir­ect­or may also au­thor­ise mem­bers of the can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­it­ies to be provided with a cov­er story by the FIS.

3 In or­der to es­tab­lish and main­tain a cov­er story, the FIS may pro­duce or al­ter of­fi­cial doc­u­ments. The re­spons­ible fed­er­al, can­ton­al and com­mun­al au­thor­it­ies are re­quired to co­oper­ate with the FIS.

4 The Dir­ect­or of the FIS shall sub­mit a re­port each year to the Head of the DDPS on the use of cov­er stor­ies.

5 Con­ceal­ing one’s as­so­ci­ation with the FIS or a can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­ity without us­ing of­fi­cial doc­u­ments pro­duced or altered for this pur­pose does not re­quire any spe­cial au­thor­isa­tion.

Art. 18 Alias identities  

1 The Head of the DDPS may au­thor­ise the fol­low­ing per­sons to be provided with an ali­as iden­tity, i.e. be giv­en an iden­tity oth­er than their true iden­tity in or­der to en­sure their safety or fa­cil­it­ate in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing:

a.
FIS em­ploy­ees;
b.
in con­sulta­tion with or at the re­quest of the can­ton, em­ploy­ees of the can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­it­ies act­ing in terms of a fed­er­al man­date;
c.
hu­man sources in the course of a spe­cif­ic op­er­a­tion.

2 The ali­as iden­tity may be used for as long as re­quired to en­sure the safety of the per­son con­cerned or fa­cil­it­ate in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing. Use is sub­ject to the fol­low­ing time lim­its:

a.
for em­ploy­ees of the FIS or of can­ton­al se­cur­ity agen­cies: a max­im­um of five years; if re­quired, this peri­od may be ex­ten­ded for a max­im­um of three fur­ther years in any giv­en case;
b.
for hu­man sources: a max­im­um of twelve months; if re­quired, this peri­od may be ex­ten­ded for a max­im­um of twelve fur­ther months in any giv­en case.

3 The use of an ali­as iden­tity to gath­er in­form­a­tion is only per­mit­ted for a pur­pose set out in Art­icle 6 para­graph 1 and where:

a.
at­tempts to gath­er in­form­a­tion without us­ing an ali­as iden­tity have been un­suc­cess­ful, would have no pro­spect of suc­cess without the use of an ali­as iden­tity or would be dis­pro­por­tion­ately more dif­fi­cult; or
b.
there is a threat to a sig­ni­fic­ant leg­al in­terest such as the life and limb or phys­ic­al in­teg­rity of the per­son re­quired to gath­er the in­form­a­tion or of a per­son closely as­so­ci­ated with that per­son.

4 In or­der to de­vel­op and main­tain a cov­er story, the FIS may pro­duce or al­ter iden­tity doc­u­ments, of­fi­cial doc­u­ments and oth­er doc­u­ments as well as per­son­al de­tails. The re­spons­ible fed­er­al, can­ton­al and com­mun­al au­thor­it­ies are re­quired to co­oper­ate with the FIS.

5 The FIS shall take the re­quired meas­ures to pro­tect the per­son’s true iden­tity from be­ing re­vealed.

Section 3 Duties to provide Information and to report

Art. 19 Obligation to provide information in the case of a specific threat  

1 Fed­er­al and can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies and or­gan­isa­tions that the Con­fed­er­a­tion or the can­tons have man­dated to ful­fil pub­lic tasks are ob­liged in spe­cif­ic cases and on jus­ti­fied re­quest to provide the FIS with the in­form­a­tion re­quired to identi­fy or re­pel a spe­cif­ic threat to in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity or to safe­guard oth­er im­port­ant na­tion­al in­terests in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 3.

2 A spe­cif­ic threat to in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity is es­tab­lished if a sig­ni­fic­ant leg­al in­terest such as the life and limb or the liberty of per­sons or the ex­ist­ence and func­tion­ing of the state is af­fected and the threat comes from:

a.
ter­ror­ist activ­it­ies in the sense of at­tempts to in­flu­ence or change the frame­work of the state that are real­ised or en­cour­aged by com­mit­ting or threat­en­ing to com­mit ser­i­ous of­fences or by spread­ing fear and alarm;
b.
es­pi­on­age in terms of Art­icles 272–274 and 301 of the Crim­in­al Code (SCC)8 and Art­icles 86 and 93 of the Mil­it­ary Crim­in­al Code of 13 June 19279;
c.
ABC pro­lif­er­a­tion or the il­leg­al trade in ra­dio­act­ive sub­stances, war ma­ter­i­al and oth­er arma­ments;
d.
an at­tack on crit­ic­al in­fra­struc­ture; or
e.
vi­ol­ent ex­trem­ist activ­it­ies in the sense of ef­forts by or­gan­isa­tions that re­ject demo­crat­ic and con­sti­tu­tion­al val­ues and which com­mit, in­cite or en­dorse acts of vi­ol­ence in or­der to achieve their ob­ject­ives.

3 The au­thor­it­ies and or­gan­isa­tions men­tioned in para­graph 1 are re­quired to pre­serve secrecy in re­la­tion to third parties with re­gard to the re­quest and any in­form­a­tion provided. They are per­mit­ted to in­form their su­per­i­ors and su­per­vis­ory bod­ies.

4 They may file a re­port without hav­ing to be re­ques­ted to do so if they identi­fy a spe­cif­ic threat to in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity in terms of para­graph 2.

5 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall spe­cify in an or­din­ance the or­gan­isa­tions that are re­quired to provide in­form­a­tion; these in­clude in par­tic­u­lar pub­lic and private or­gan­isa­tions that do not form part of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion but which is­sue le­gis­la­tion or first-in­stance rul­ings as defined in Art­icle 5 of the Ad­min­is­trat­ive Pro­ced­ure Act of 20 Decem­ber 196810 or which ful­fil ex­ec­ut­ive tasks that have been del­eg­ated to them by the Con­fed­er­a­tion; the can­tons are not re­garded as such or­gan­isa­tions.

Art. 20 Special obligation to provide information and report  

1 The fol­low­ing au­thor­it­ies are ob­liged to provide the FIS with in­form­a­tion in or­der to carry out its tasks:

a.
courts, pro­sec­u­tion au­thor­it­ies and au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for ex­ecut­ing crim­in­al sen­tences and meas­ures;
b.
the bor­der guard and cus­toms au­thor­it­ies;
c.
au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for mil­it­ary se­cur­ity, the au­thor­it­ies of the Armed Forces In­tel­li­gence Ser­vice and the au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for the mil­it­ary ser­vice re­gis­tra­tion sys­tem;
d.
fed­er­al and can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for mat­ters re­lat­ing to the entry and res­id­ence of for­eign na­tion­als and for asylum mat­ters;
e.
au­thor­it­ies that are in­volved in se­cur­ity poli­cing tasks;
f.
res­id­ents’ re­gister of­fices;
g.
au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for dip­lo­mat­ic and con­su­lar mat­ters;
h.
au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for au­thor­ising deal­ings with cer­tain goods;
i.
au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for the op­er­a­tion of com­puter sys­tems;
j.
au­thor­it­ies that are re­spons­ible for the su­per­vi­sion of the fin­an­cial mar­kets and for ac­cept­ing re­ports of sus­pi­cions of money laun­der­ing in cases of fin­an­cing ter­ror­ism and ABC pro­lif­er­a­tion activ­it­ies in ac­cord­ance with the Anti-Money Laun­der­ing Act of 10 Oc­to­ber 199711.

2 The au­thor­it­ies lis­ted in para­graph 1 are re­quired to pre­serve secrecy in re­la­tion to third parties with re­gard to the re­quest and any in­form­a­tion provided. They are per­mit­ted to in­form their su­per­i­ors and su­per­vi­sion bod­ies.

3 The au­thor­it­ies lis­ted in para­graph 1 shall file a re­port without hav­ing to be re­ques­ted to do so if they identi­fy a spe­cif­ic and ser­i­ous threat to in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity.12

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall spe­cify in an un­pub­lished list which activ­it­ies and in­tel­li­gence must be re­por­ted to the FIS without a re­quest be­ing re­quired. It shall spe­cify the ex­tent of the ob­lig­a­tion to re­port and the pro­ced­ure for provid­ing in­form­a­tion.

11 SR 955.0

12 The cor­rec­tion of the FA Draft­ing Com­mit­tee of 12 March 2020, pub­lished 24 March 2020, relates to the French text only (AS 2020 1057).

Art. 21 Professional confidentiality  

In the case of in­form­a­tion in terms of Art­icle 19 or 20, the stat­utory pro­tec­tion for pro­fes­sion­al con­fid­en­ti­al­ity con­tin­ues to ap­ply.

Art. 22 Procedure in the event of differences of opinion about obligations to provide information and to report  

1 In the event of any dif­fer­ences of opin­ion between the FIS and an­oth­er unit of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion with re­gard to an ob­lig­a­tion to provide in­form­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 19 or 20, the rel­ev­ant joint su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity shall make the fi­nal de­cision.

2 In the case of dif­fer­ences of opin­ion between the FIS and an or­gan­isa­tion, of­ficer or au­thor­ity that does not form part of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­tra­tion with re­gard to an ob­lig­a­tion to provide in­form­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 19 or 20, the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court shall de­cide in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 36a of the Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court Act of 17 June 200513.

Art. 23 Reports and information from third parties  

1 The FIS may ac­cept re­ports from any per­son.

2 It may ob­tain by writ­ten or verbal re­quest spe­cif­ic in­form­a­tion that it re­quires in or­der to carry out its tasks. It may in­vite per­sons in writ­ing to be ques­tioned.

3 It shall no­ti­fy the per­son re­ques­ted for in­form­a­tion that they are provid­ing in­form­a­tion vol­un­tar­ily; the fore­go­ing does not ap­ply to in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing while us­ing a cov­er story.

Art. 24 Identification and questioning of persons  

1 In or­der to carry out its tasks in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 6 para­graph 1 let­ter a, the FIS may have a per­son stopped in or­der to es­tab­lish their iden­tity and to ques­tion them briefly in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 23.

2 The per­son shall be stopped by can­ton­al po­lice of­ficers.

3 The FIS may re­quire the per­son stopped to provide their per­son­al de­tails and pro­duce iden­tity doc­u­ments.

Art. 25 Special duties of private individuals to provide information  

1 In­so­far as it is ne­ces­sary to identi­fy, pre­vent or re­pel a spe­cif­ic threat to in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 19 para­graph 2, the FIS may re­quest the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion and re­cords in spe­cif­ic cases:

a.
from a nat­ur­al per­son or leg­al en­tity that car­ries out trans­port op­er­a­tions for com­mer­cial gain or provides or ar­ranges means of trans­port: in­form­a­tion about a ser­vice that it has provided;
b.
from private op­er­at­ors of se­cur­ity in­fra­struc­tures, in par­tic­u­lar im­age trans­mis­sion and im­age re­cord­ing devices: the han­dover of re­cord­ings, in­clud­ing re­cord­ings of events in pub­lic loc­a­tions.

2 The FIS may also ob­tain in­form­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 15 of the Fed­er­al Act of 18 March 201614 on the Sur­veil­lance of Postal and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Traffic (SPTA).15

14 SR 780.1

15 Amended by Art. 46 No 2 of the FA of 18 March 2016 on the Sur­veil­lance of Postal and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Traffic, in force since 1 March 2018 (AS 2018 117; BBl 2013 2683).

Section 4 Information Gathering Measures requiring Authorisation

Art. 26 Forms of information gathering measures requiring authorisation  

1 The fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ures re­quire au­thor­isa­tion:

a.16
sur­veil­lance of post and tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions and re­quests for mar­gin­al data re­lat­ing to post and tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions in ac­cord­ance with the SPTA17;
abis.18
the use of spe­cial tech­nic­al devices to mon­it­or tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions, to re­cord trans­mis­sions or to identi­fy a per­son or ob­ject or to as­cer­tain their loc­a­tion if mon­it­or­ing in ac­cord­ance with let­ter a has been un­suc­cess­ful, would be without pro­spect of suc­cess or would be un­reas­on­ably dif­fi­cult and the li­cences un­der tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions law for the spe­cial tech­nic­al devices have been ob­tained;
b.
the use of loc­al­isa­tion devices to es­tab­lish the loc­a­tion and the move­ments of per­sons or ob­jects;
c.
the use of mon­it­or­ing devices in or­der to listen to and re­cord words spoken in non-pub­lic places or to ob­serve and re­cord events at non-pub­lic or not gen­er­ally ac­cess­ible loc­a­tions;
d.
the in­tru­sion in­to com­puter sys­tems and com­puter net­works in or­der to:
1.
gath­er in­form­a­tion avail­able there or trans­mit­ted from there,
2.
dis­rupt, pre­vent or slow down ac­cess to in­form­a­tion where the com­puter sys­tems and com­puter net­works are be­ing used for at­tacks on crit­ic­al in­fra­struc­tures;
e.
the search of premises, vehicles or stor­age fa­cil­it­ies in or­der to pro­cure ob­jects or in­form­a­tion there or in­form­a­tion trans­mit­ted from there.

2 The meas­ures shall be car­ried out cov­ertly; the per­son con­cerned is not made aware there­of.

16 Amended by Art. 46 No 2 of the FA of 18 March 2016 on the Sur­veil­lance of Postal and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Traffic, in force since 1 March 2018 (AS 2018 117; BBl 2013 2683).

17 SR 780.1

18 In­ser­ted by Art. 46 No 2 of the FA of 18 March 2016 on the Sur­veil­lance of Postal and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Traffic, in force since 1 March 2018 (AS 2018 117; BBl 2013 2683).

Art. 27 Principle  

1 The FIS may or­der an in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure re­quir­ing au­thor­isa­tion if:

a.
there is a spe­cif­ic threat in terms of Art­icle 19 para­graph 2 let­ters a–d or the meas­ure is re­quired to safe­guard oth­er im­port­ant na­tion­al in­terests in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 3;
b.
the ser­i­ous­ness of the threat jus­ti­fies the meas­ure; and
c.
in­tel­li­gence in­vest­ig­a­tions so far have been un­suc­cess­ful or would oth­er­wise be without pro­spect of suc­cess or un­reas­on­ably dif­fi­cult.

2 The FIS shall ob­tain the au­thor­isa­tion of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court and clear­ance from the Head of the DDPS be­fore car­ry­ing out the meas­ure.

3 If oth­er fed­er­al and can­ton­al agen­cies are re­quired to par­ti­cip­ate in car­ry­ing out the meas­ure, the FIS shall is­sue them with a writ­ten or­der as soon as the au­thor­isa­tion of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court and clear­ance from the Head of the DDPS is gran­ted. The in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure must be kept secret.

Art. 28 Ordering information gathering measures requiring authorisation in relation to third parties  

1 The FIS may also or­der an in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure re­quir­ing au­thor­isa­tion in re­la­tion to a third party if there is reas­on to be­lieve that the per­son from whom it is in­ten­ded to gath­er the in­form­a­tion is us­ing premises, vehicles or stor­age fa­cil­it­ies be­long­ing to the third party or the lat­ter’s postal ad­dresses, tele­com­mu­nic­a­tion con­nec­tion points, com­puter sys­tems or com­puter net­works in or­der to trans­mit, re­ceive or store in­form­a­tion.

2 The meas­ure may not be ordered if the third party be­longs to one of the pro­fes­sion­al groups men­tioned in Art­icles 171–173 Crim­PC19.

Art. 29 Authorisation procedure  

1 Where the FIS in­tends to or­der an in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure re­quir­ing au­thor­isa­tion, it shall sub­mit an ap­plic­a­tion to the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court with:

a.
de­tails of the spe­cif­ic ob­ject­ive of the in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure and the reas­ons for its ne­ces­sity and an ex­plan­a­tion of why in­vest­ig­a­tions have so far been un­suc­cess­ful, would be without pro­spect of suc­cess or would be un­reas­on­ably dif­fi­cult;
b.
de­tails of the per­sons who will be af­fected by the in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure;
c.
a pre­cise de­scrip­tion of the in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure and de­tails of its stat­utory basis;
d.
de­tails of any oth­er agen­cies that it is in­ten­ded to in­struct to carry out the in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure;
e.
de­tails of when the in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure will start and fin­ish and the dead­line by which it must be car­ried out;
f.
the files re­quired for grant­ing au­thor­isa­tion.

2 The pres­id­ent of the com­pet­ent di­vi­sion of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court shall is­sue as a single judge a de­cision with a brief state­ment of reas­ons with­in five work­ing days of re­ceipt of the ap­plic­a­tion; he or she may del­eg­ate this task to an­oth­er judge.

3 The pres­id­ent of the com­pet­ent di­vi­sion of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court shall not au­thor­ise a re­ques­ted in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure if that meas­ure has already been au­thor­ised in con­nec­tion with crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings against the per­sons con­cerned in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 let­ter b and the crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion is con­nec­tion with a spe­cif­ic threat that the FIS in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure is in­ten­ded to cla­ri­fy. The com­pet­ent courts re­spons­ible for com­puls­ory meas­ures or the Post and Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions Sur­veil­lance Bur­eau shall provide the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court with the re­quired in­form­a­tion.

4 The pres­id­ent of the com­pet­ent di­vi­sion of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court may re­quire a hear­ing of rep­res­ent­at­ives of the FIS as part of the de­cision-mak­ing pro­cess.

5 He or she may grant au­thor­isa­tion sub­ject to con­di­tions or re­quest fur­ther files or fur­ther in­vest­ig­a­tions.

6 Au­thor­isa­tion ap­plies for a max­im­um of three months. This peri­od may be ex­ten­ded in any giv­en case by a max­im­um of three months.

7 If an ex­ten­sion is re­quired, the FIS shall file a sub­stan­ti­ated ap­plic­a­tion for an ex­ten­sion in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 be­fore the au­thor­ised peri­od ex­pires.

8 The pres­id­ent of the com­pet­ent di­vi­sion of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court shall pre­pare an an­nu­al re­port for the at­ten­tion of the Con­trol Del­eg­a­tion (CDel).

Art. 30 Clearance  

1 If the in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure has been au­thor­ised, the Head of the DDPS, after con­sult­ing the Head of the FD­FA and the Head of the Fed­er­al Justice and Po­lice De­part­ment (FD­JP) shall de­cide on clear­ance for the meas­ure to be car­ried out. Cases of par­tic­u­lar im­port­ance may be sub­mit­ted to the Fed­er­al Coun­cil.

2 The con­sulta­tion pro­ced­ure must be con­duc­ted in writ­ing.

Art. 31 Procedure in cases of urgency  

1 In cases of ur­gency, the Dir­ect­or of the FIS may or­der the im­me­di­ate use of in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ures re­quir­ing au­thor­isa­tion. He or she shall im­me­di­ately in­form the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court and the Head of the DDPS. Either may ter­min­ate the in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.

2 The Dir­ect­or of the FIS shall file the ap­plic­a­tion with­in 24 hours with the pres­id­ent of the com­pet­ent di­vi­sion of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court and shall give reas­ons for the ur­gency.

3 The pres­id­ent of the com­pet­ent di­vi­sion of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court shall no­ti­fy the FIS of his or her de­cision with­in three work­ing days.

4 If the in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure has been au­thor­ised, the Head of the DDPS, after con­sult­ing the Head of the FD­FA and the Head of the FD­JP, shall de­cide on clear­ance for the meas­ure to be con­tin­ued.

Art. 32 Termination  

1 The FIS shall ter­min­ate the in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure re­quir­ing au­thor­isa­tion im­me­di­ately, if:

a.
the au­thor­ised peri­od has ex­pired;
b.
the re­quire­ments for con­tinu­ing with the meas­ure are no longer ful­filled;
c.
au­thor­isa­tion by the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court or clear­ance from the Head of the DDPS is not gran­ted.

2 In cases of ur­gency, the FIS shall en­sure the im­me­di­ate de­struc­tion of the data pro­cured if:

a.
the pres­id­ent of the com­pet­ent di­vi­sion of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court re­jects the ap­plic­a­tion;
b.
the Head of the DDPS ter­min­ates the in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure with im­me­di­ate ef­fect or re­fuses clear­ance for con­tinu­ation.

3 If oth­er agen­cies are in­volved in car­ry­ing out the in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure re­quir­ing au­thor­isa­tion, the FIS shall no­ti­fy them of its ter­min­a­tion.

4 The FIS shall no­ti­fy the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court and the Head of the DDPS of the ter­min­a­tion of the in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure.

Art. 33 Obligation to notify  

1 The FIS shall no­ti­fy the per­son be­ing mon­itored with­in one month after con­clu­sion of the op­er­a­tion of the reas­on for and nature and dur­a­tion of mon­it­or­ing us­ing in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ures re­quir­ing au­thor­isa­tion.

2 It may post­pone or dis­pense with giv­ing no­ti­fic­a­tion if:

a.
this is ne­ces­sary so as not to jeop­ard­ise an on­go­ing in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure or on­go­ing leg­al pro­ceed­ings;
b.
this is ne­ces­sary due to an­oth­er over­rid­ing pub­lic in­terest in or­der to safe­guard in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity or Swiss for­eign re­la­tions;
c.
no­ti­fic­a­tion could cause ser­i­ous danger to third parties;
d.
the per­son con­cerned can­not be con­tac­ted.

3 Post­pon­ing or dis­pens­ing with no­ti­fic­a­tion must be au­thor­ised and cleared in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 29.

Section 5 Cooperation and Protection of Sources

Art. 34 Cooperation and delegation of information gathering  

1 The FIS may carry out the in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ures it­self, work with do­mest­ic or for­eign agen­cies, or del­eg­ate in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing to such agen­cies provided the oth­er agen­cies guar­an­tee that in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing will be car­ried out in ac­cord­ance with this Act.

2 By way of ex­cep­tion, it may also work with private in­di­vidu­als or is­sue private in­di­vidu­als with as­sign­ments if this is re­quired for tech­nic­al reas­ons or to gain ac­cess to the ob­ject of in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing and the per­son con­cerned of­fers a guar­an­tee that in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing will be car­ried out in ac­cord­ance with this Act.

Art. 35 Protection of sources  

1 The FIS shall en­sure the pro­tec­tion of its sources and shall pre­serve their an­onym­ity, in par­tic­u­lar that of for­eign in­tel­li­gence ser­vices and se­cur­ity ser­vices and of per­sons who gath­er in­form­a­tion about for­eign coun­tries and are en­dangered as a res­ult. The fore­go­ing does not ap­ply to per­sons who are ac­cused in crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings of ser­i­ous crimes against hu­man­ity or war crimes.

2 The FIS shall dis­close the iden­tity of a hu­man source res­id­ent in Switzer­land to the Swiss pro­sec­u­tion au­thor­it­ies if the per­son con­cerned is sus­pec­ted of an of­fence that is pro­sec­uted ex of­fi­cio or if dis­clos­ure is es­sen­tial in or­der to identi­fy the per­pet­rat­or of a ser­i­ous of­fence.

3 The fol­low­ing must be con­sidered in re­la­tion to the pro­tec­tion of sources:

a.
the in­terests of the FIS in con­tinu­ing to use the source for in­tel­li­gence;
b.
the need for hu­man sources in par­tic­u­lar to be pro­tec­ted from third parties;
c.
in the case of tech­nic­al sources: in­form­a­tion that should be kept secret about in­fra­struc­ture, per­form­ance cap­ab­il­it­ies, op­er­a­tion­al meth­ods and pro­ced­ures for pro­cur­ing in­form­a­tion.

4 In the event of a dis­pute, the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court shall de­cide; the rel­ev­ant pro­vi­sions on mu­tu­al as­sist­ance also ap­ply.

Section 6 Information Gathering about Events outside Switzerland

Art. 36 General provisions  

1 The FIS may cov­ertly gath­er in­form­a­tion about events out­side Switzer­land.

2 Where the FIS pro­cures in­form­a­tion in Switzer­land about events out­side Switzer­land, it is bound by the pro­vi­sions of Sec­tion 4; Art­icle 37 para­graph 2 re­mains re­served.

3 The FIS shall en­sure that the risk in in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing is not dis­pro­por­tion­ate to the ex­pec­ted be­ne­fit of in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing and that in­ter­fer­ence with the fun­da­ment­al rights of the per­sons con­cerned can be lim­ited to what is ne­ces­sary.

4 It shall doc­u­ment in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing about events out­side Switzer­land for the at­ten­tion of the su­per­vi­sion and con­trol bod­ies.

5 It may store data sep­ar­ately from in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ures abroad that are com­par­able with in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ures re­quir­ing au­thor­isa­tion if this is re­quired be­cause of the volume of data, con­fid­en­ti­al­ity or se­cur­ity.

6 FIS em­ploy­ees de­ployed abroad shall be in­sured dur­ing their mis­sion un­der the Fed­er­al Act of 19 June 199220 on Mil­it­ary In­sur­ance against Ill­ness and Ac­ci­dent.

7 The FIS shall en­sure the pro­tec­tion of its em­ploy­ees de­ployed abroad.

Art. 37 Intrusion into computer systems and computer networks  

1 Where com­puter sys­tems and com­puter net­works loc­ated abroad are used to carry out at­tacks on crit­ic­al in­fra­struc­tures in Switzer­land, the FIS may in­trude in­to these com­puter sys­tems and com­puter net­works in or­der to dis­rupt, pre­vent or slow down ac­cess to in­form­a­tion. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­cide on wheth­er such a meas­ure should be car­ried out.

2 The FIS may in­trude in­to com­puter sys­tems and com­puter net­works abroad in or­der to gath­er in­form­a­tion about events out­side Switzer­land that is avail­able there or that has been trans­mit­ted from there. The Head of the DDPS shall de­cide after con­sult­ing the Head of the FD­FA and the Head of the FD­JP on wheth­er such a meas­ure should be car­ried out.

Art. 38 Radio communications intelligence  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion may op­er­ate a ser­vice for re­cord­ing elec­tro-mag­net­ic emis­sions from tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions sys­tems loc­ated abroad (ra­dio com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence).

2 Ra­dio com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence has the fol­low­ing pur­poses:

a.
in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing about events out­side Switzer­land that are of sig­ni­fic­ance to se­cur­ity, in par­tic­u­lar re­lat­ing to ter­ror­ism, the pro­lif­er­a­tion of weapons of mass de­struc­tion and for­eign con­flicts that have an ef­fect on Switzer­land;
b.
safe­guard­ing of oth­er im­port­ant na­tion­al in­terests in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 3.

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the fields of com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence, and the or­gan­isa­tion and pro­ced­ures for ra­dio com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence. It shall spe­cify for how long the re­cor­ded com­mu­nic­a­tions and con­nec­tion data may be re­tained by the ser­vice car­ry­ing out the com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence.

4 It shall in par­tic­u­lar en­sure that from the re­cor­ded com­mu­nic­a­tions the ser­vice car­ry­ing out the com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence:

a.
only passes on in­form­a­tion re­lat­ing to events out­side Switzer­land that are of sig­ni­fic­ance to se­cur­ity;
b.
only passes on in­form­a­tion about per­sons in Switzer­land if the in­form­a­tion is re­quired to un­der­stand an event abroad and has been an­onymised be­fore­hand.

5 The ser­vice car­ry­ing out the com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence shall pass on in­form­a­tion about events in Switzer­land ob­tained from the re­cor­ded com­mu­nic­a­tions if the in­form­a­tion provides evid­ence of a spe­cif­ic threat to in­tern­al se­cur­ity in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 6 para­graph 1 let­ter a.

6 If it comes across re­cor­ded com­mu­nic­a­tions in the course of its activ­it­ies that con­tain no in­form­a­tion about events out­side Switzer­land that are of sig­ni­fic­ance to se­cur­ity and no evid­ence of any spe­cif­ic threat to in­tern­al se­cur­ity, it shall des­troy the re­cord­ings as quickly as pos­sible.

Section 7 Cable Communications Intelligence

Art. 39 General Provisions  

1 In or­der to gath­er in­form­a­tion about events out­side Switzer­land that are of sig­ni­fic­ance to se­cur­ity (Art. 6 para. 1 let. b) and to safe­guard ad­di­tion­al im­port­ant na­tion­al in­terests in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 3, the FIS may in­struct the ser­vice car­ry­ing out the com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence to re­cord cross-bor­der sig­nals from cable-based net­works.

2 If both the trans­mit­ter and the re­cip­i­ent are loc­ated in Switzer­land, the re­cor­ded sig­nals in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 may not be used. If the ser­vice car­ry­ing out com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence can­not sep­ar­ate such sig­nals dur­ing the re­cord­ing pro­cess, the data pro­cured shall be des­troyed as soon as it is es­tab­lished that it ori­gin­ates from such sig­nals.

3 Data from re­cor­ded sig­nals may only be passed on to the FIS if its con­tent cor­res­ponds to the search para­met­ers defined for the op­er­a­tion. The search para­met­ers must be defined so that their ap­plic­a­tion causes as little in­ter­fer­ence as pos­sible in the private do­main of per­sons. De­tails of Swiss nat­ur­al per­sons or leg­al en­tit­ies are not per­mit­ted as search para­met­ers.

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late:

a.
the per­mit­ted fields of com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence;
b.
the or­gan­isa­tion and the de­tails of the pro­ced­ure for cable com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence;
c.
the max­im­um peri­od that the ser­vice car­ry­ing out the com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence may re­tain re­cor­ded con­tent and con­nec­tion data ob­tained from cable com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence.
Art. 40 Authorisation requirement  

1 Cable com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence man­dates re­quire au­thor­isa­tion.

2 Be­fore the FIS is­sues a man­date for cable com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence it shall ob­tain the au­thor­isa­tion of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court and clear­ance from the Head of the DDPS.

3 The Head of the DDPS shall con­sult the Head of the FD­FA and the Head of the FD­JP be­fore­hand.

Art. 41 Authorisation procedure  

1 If the FIS in­tends to is­sue a man­date for cable com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence, it shall file an ap­plic­a­tion with Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court that in­cludes:

a.
a de­scrip­tion of the man­date to be is­sued to the ser­vice car­ry­ing out the com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence;
b.
the reas­ons why the op­er­a­tion is ne­ces­sary;
c.
de­tails of the cat­egor­ies of search para­met­ers;
d.
de­tails of the op­er­at­ors of cable-based net­works and the pro­viders of tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions ser­vices that must sup­ply the sig­nals re­quired to con­duct the cable com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence; and
e.
de­tails of when the op­er­a­tion will start and fin­ish.

2 The fur­ther pro­ced­ure is gov­erned by Art­icles 29–32.

3 Au­thor­isa­tion ap­plies for a max­im­um of six months. This peri­od may be ex­ten­ded for a max­im­um of three months in any giv­en case in ac­cord­ance with the same pro­ced­ure.

Art. 42 Conduct  

1 The ser­vice car­ry­ing out com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence re­ceives the sig­nals from the op­er­at­ors and pro­viders in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 41 para­graph 1 let­ter d, con­verts them in­to data and as­sesses on the basis of the con­tent which data is passed on to the FIS.

2 It shall only pass on data to the FIS that con­tains in­form­a­tion with­in the search para­met­ers defined for ful­fil­ment of the man­date. It shall only pass on in­form­a­tion about per­sons in Switzer­land to the FIS if the in­form­a­tion is re­quired to un­der­stand an event abroad and has been an­onymised be­fore­hand.

3 If the data con­tains in­form­a­tion about events in Switzer­land or abroad that provides evid­ence of a spe­cif­ic threat to in­tern­al se­cur­ity in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 6 para­graph 1 let­ter a, the ser­vice car­ry­ing out com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence shall pass on the data un­changed to the FIS.

4 The ser­vice car­ry­ing out com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence must des­troy data that does not con­tain any in­form­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with para­graphs 2 and 3 as quickly as pos­sible.

5 The FIS is re­spons­ible for the in­tel­li­gence eval­u­ation of the data.

Art. 43 Obligations of operators of cable-based networks and providers of telecommunications services  

1 Op­er­at­ors of cable-based net­works and pro­viders of tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions ser­vices are ob­liged to provide the ser­vice car­ry­ing out com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence or the FIS with the tech­nic­al in­form­a­tion re­quired to carry out the cable com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence.

2 If clear­ance has been giv­en for an op­er­a­tion, op­er­at­ors of cable-based net­works and pro­viders of tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions ser­vices are ob­liged to sup­ply sig­nals to the ser­vice car­ry­ing out com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence. They must re­move any en­cryp­tion that they have ap­plied.

3 Op­er­at­ors of cable-based net­works and pro­viders of tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions ser­vices are ob­liged to pre­serve secrecy about op­er­a­tions.

4 The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall com­pensate op­er­at­ors of cable-based net­works and pro­viders of tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions ser­vices. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the level of com­pens­a­tion based on the cost of sup­ply­ing the sig­nals to the ser­vice car­ry­ing out com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence.

Chapter 4 Data Processing and Archiving

Section 1 Principles, Quality Assurance and Data Processing in the Cantons

Art. 44 Principles  

1 The FIS and the can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­it­ies may pro­cess per­son­al data, in­clud­ing sens­it­ive per­son­al data and per­son­al­ity pro­files.

2 The FIS may also pro­cess in­form­a­tion that proves to be dis­in­form­a­tion or false in­form­a­tion if this is ne­ces­sary in or­der to as­sess the situ­ation or a source. It shall mark the rel­ev­ant data as in­cor­rect.

3 It may trans­fer the same data to sev­er­al in­form­a­tion sys­tems. The spe­cific­a­tions for the in­form­a­tion sys­tem con­cerned ap­ply.

4 It may re­cord data with­in an in­form­a­tion sys­tem through a net­work and eval­u­ate it auto­mat­ic­ally.

Art. 45 Quality assurance  

1 The FIS shall as­sess the rel­ev­ance and ac­cur­acy of per­son­al data be­fore re­cord­ing it in an in­form­a­tion sys­tem. Re­ports that con­tain sev­er­al sets of per­son­al data shall be as­sessed in their en­tirety be­fore they are re­cor­ded in the fil­ing sys­tem.

2 It shall only re­cord data that may be used to ful­fil the tasks in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 6, sub­ject to com­pli­ance with Art­icle 5 para­graphs 5–8.

3 It shall des­troy data that may not be re­cor­ded in any in­form­a­tion sys­tem or re­turn it to the sender for fur­ther in­vest­ig­a­tion or for pro­cessing on the sender’s own ini­ti­at­ive.

4 It shall peri­od­ic­ally check in all in­form­a­tion sys­tems wheth­er the re­cor­ded sets of per­son­al data are still re­quired to carry out its tasks. It shall de­lete data re­cords that are no longer re­quired. In­cor­rect data shall be cor­rec­ted im­me­di­ately or de­leted; Art­icle 44 para­graph 2 re­mains re­served.

5 The FIS’s in­tern­al qual­ity as­sur­ance ser­vice shall carry out the fol­low­ing tasks:

a.
it shall re­view the per­son­al data in the sys­tem IASA-GEX FIS (Art. 50) with re­gard to its rel­ev­ance and ac­cur­acy;
b.
it shall peri­od­ic­ally re­view the re­ports from the can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­it­ies re­cor­ded in the IN­DEX FIS sys­tem (Art. 51) with re­gard to their rel­ev­ance and ac­cur­acy;
c.
it shall veri­fy by ran­dom sample the leg­al­ity, ex­pedi­ency, ef­fect­ive­ness and ac­cur­acy of the data pro­cessing in all FIS in­form­a­tion sys­tems;
d.
it shall de­lete data in the IN­DEX FIS sys­tem that ori­gin­ates from pre­lim­in­ary in­vest­ig­a­tions con­duc­ted by the can­tons which was re­cor­ded more than five years pre­vi­ously, and data whose de­le­tion is re­ques­ted by the can­ton;
e.
it shall ar­range in­tern­al train­ing ses­sions for FIS em­ploy­ees on data pro­tec­tion mat­ters.
Art. 46 Data processing in the cantons  

1 The can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­it­ies shall not main­tain any data col­lec­tions of their own in ap­plic­a­tion of this Act.

2 If the can­tons pro­cess data on their own ini­ti­at­ive, they shall en­sure that the can­ton­al data makes no ref­er­ence to the ex­ist­ence or con­tent of fed­er­al data.

3 The can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­it­ies may pass on situ­ation as­sess­ments and data that they re­ceive from the FIS if this is ne­ces­sary in or­der to as­sess meas­ures to safe­guard se­cur­ity or to avert a sig­ni­fic­ant danger. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the agen­cies and the ex­tent to which as­sess­ments and data may be passed on.

Section 2 Intelligence Information Systems

Art. 47 FIS information systems  

1 The FIS shall op­er­ate the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion sys­tems in or­der to carry out its tasks in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 6:

a.
IASA FIS (Art. 49);
b.
IASA-GEX FIS (Art. 50);
c.
IN­DEX FIS (Art. 51);
d.
GEVER FIS (Art. 52);
e.
ESD (Art. 53);
f.
OS­INT portal (Art. 54);
g.
Quat­tro P (Art. 55);
h.
ISCO (Art. 56);
i.
re­sid­ual data memory (Art. 57).

2 For each FIS in­form­a­tion sys­tem, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late:

a.
the cata­logue of per­son­al data;
b.
re­spons­ib­il­it­ies for data pro­cessing;
c.
ac­cess rights;
d.
the fre­quency of qual­ity as­sur­ance, tak­ing ac­count of the ser­i­ous­ness of the in­ter­fer­ence in con­sti­tu­tion­al rights caused by data pro­cessing;
e.
the re­ten­tion peri­od for the data, tak­ing ac­count of the spe­cif­ic needs of the FIS in re­la­tion to the task areas con­cerned;
f.
the de­le­tion of the data;
g.
data se­cur­ity.
Art. 48 Allocation of data to the information systems  

The FIS shall al­loc­ate in­com­ing data as fol­lows:

a.
data with in­form­a­tion about vi­ol­ent ex­trem­ism: to the IASA-GEX FIS sys­tem;
b.
data with in­form­a­tion that ini­ti­ates ad­min­is­trat­ive pro­cesses only: the GEVER FIS sys­tem;
c.
data with in­form­a­tion re­lated to se­cur­ity meas­ures only: the ESD sys­tem;
d.
data from pub­licly ac­cess­ible sources: the OS­INT portal sys­tem;
e.
data from bor­der and cus­toms checks: the Quat­tro P sys­tem;
f.
data that is used only for task man­age­ment and for con­trolling ra­dio and cable com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence: the ISCO sys­tem;
g.
oth­er data: the re­sid­ual data memory sys­tem.
Art. 49 IASA FIS  

1 The FIS in­teg­ral ana­lys­is sys­tem (IASA FIS) is used for the in­tel­li­gence eval­u­ation of data.

2 It con­tains data re­lat­ing to the task areas in Art­icle 6 para­graph 1, with the ex­cep­tion of data on vi­ol­ent ex­trem­ism.

3 FIS em­ploy­ees that have the task of re­cord­ing, re­search­ing, eval­u­at­ing and as­sur­ing the qual­ity of the data have on­line ac­cess to IASA FIS. They may carry out data searches with the aid of IASA FIS in all FIS in­form­a­tion sys­tems to which they hold ac­cess rights.

Art. 50 IASA-GEX FIS  

1 The FIS in­teg­ral ana­lys­is sys­tem for vi­ol­ent ex­trem­ism (IASA-GEX FIS) is used for re­cord­ing, pro­cessing and eval­u­at­ing in­form­a­tion re­lat­ing to vi­ol­ent ex­trem­ism.

2 It con­tains data re­lat­ing to vi­ol­ent ex­trem­ism.

3 FIS em­ploy­ees that have the task of re­cord­ing, re­search­ing, eval­u­at­ing and as­sur­ing the qual­ity of the data have on­line ac­cess to IASA-GEX FIS.

Art. 51 INDEX FIS  

1 The IN­DEX FIS in­form­a­tion sys­tem is used:

a.
to es­tab­lish wheth­er the FIS is pro­cessing data re­lat­ing to a per­son, an or­gan­isa­tion, a group, an ob­ject or an event;
b.
to store re­ports pre­pared by the can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­it­ies;
c.
to pro­cess data from pre­lim­in­ary in­vest­ig­a­tions car­ried out by the can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­it­ies.

2 It en­ables au­thor­it­ies that are not con­nec­ted to the spe­cially se­cured FIS net­work to ac­cess data that they need to ful­fil their stat­utory tasks, and the se­cure trans­mis­sion of such data.

3 It con­tains:

a.
data for the iden­ti­fic­a­tion of the per­sons, or­gan­isa­tions, groups, ob­jects and events re­cor­ded in the IASA FIS and IASA-GEX FIS in­form­a­tion sys­tems;
b.
the re­ports pre­pared by the can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­it­ies in­de­pend­ently or on be­half of the FIS;
c.
data from pre­lim­in­ary in­vest­ig­a­tions car­ried out by the can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­it­ies.

4 The fol­low­ing per­sons have on­line ac­cess to the fol­low­ing data in IN­DEX FIS:

a.
FIS em­ploy­ees have ac­cess to the data in para­graph 3 let­ters a and b, provided they have the task of en­sur­ing the early re­cog­ni­tion and pre­ven­tion of threats to Switzer­land and its pop­u­la­tion;
b.
em­ploy­ees of the can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­it­ies in or­der to carry out their tasks in terms of this Act and to pro­cess and pass on their data from pre­lim­in­ary in­vest­ig­a­tions and their re­ports to the FIS and to oth­er can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­it­ies; only em­ploy­ees of the can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­ity that car­ried out the pre­lim­in­ary in­vest­ig­a­tions and the em­ploy­ees of the FIS qual­ity as­sur­ance ser­vice have ac­cess to data in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 3 let­ter c;
c.
em­ploy­ees of the Fed­er­al Of­fice of Po­lice have ac­cess to the data in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 3 let­ter a in or­der to con­duct se­cur­ity-re­lated, crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion and ad­min­is­trat­ive-poli­cing tasks and to as­sess al­leg­a­tions of money laun­der­ing and ter­ror­ism fin­an­cing con­tained in re­ports from Swiss fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions;
d.
the em­ploy­ees of the DDPS In­form­a­tion Se­cur­ity and Fa­cil­ity Pro­tec­tion Unit have ac­cess to the data in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 3 let­ter a in or­der to carry out per­son­nel se­cur­ity screen­ing pro­ced­ures.
Art. 52 GEVER FIS  

1 The FIS in­form­a­tion sys­tem for re­cords and pro­cess man­age­ment (GEVER FIS) is used for the pro­cessing and con­trol of busi­ness and to en­sure ef­fi­cient work pro­cesses.

2 It con­tains:

a.
data on ad­min­is­trat­ive trans­ac­tions;
b.
all out­go­ing FIS in­tel­li­gence products;
c.
data that was used to pre­pare con­tent in terms of let­ters a and b;
d.
in­form­a­tion re­quired for the busi­ness con­trols, in par­tic­u­lar in con­nec­tion with per­son­nel se­cur­ity screen­ing pro­ced­ures.

3 FIS em­ploy­ees have on­line ac­cess to GEVER FIS.

Art. 53 ESD  

1 The Elec­tron­ic Situ­ation Dis­play sys­tem (ESD) is used by the com­pet­ent fed­er­al au­thor­it­ies and the can­tons as a man­age­ment in­stru­ment and for dis­sem­in­at­ing in­form­a­tion with a view to con­trolling and im­ple­ment­ing se­cur­ity policy meas­ures, in par­tic­u­lar in the event of in­cid­ents in which acts of vi­ol­ence are an­ti­cip­ated.

2 It con­tains data about in­cid­ents and about meas­ures to safe­guard in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity.

3 FIS em­ploy­ees and the re­spons­ible fed­er­al and can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies that have the task of man­aging se­cur­ity policy or as­sess­ing or deal­ing with situ­ation-rel­ev­ant in­cid­ents have on­line ac­cess to the ESD.

4 In the case of spe­cial in­cid­ents, the FIS may also al­low private agen­cies and for­eign se­cur­ity and po­lice au­thor­it­ies tem­por­ary on­line ac­cess. Ac­cess is lim­ited to the data in the sys­tem that these agen­cies and au­thor­it­ies re­quire to ful­fil their tasks in deal­ing with the in­cid­ent con­cerned.

Art. 54 OSINT portal  

1 The FIS uses the Open Source In­tel­li­gence Portal (OS­INT portal) to ob­tain data from pub­licly ac­cess­ible sources.

2 It con­tains data that is avail­able when us­ing pub­licly ac­cess­ible sources.

3 FIS em­ploy­ees have on­line ac­cess to the OS­INT portal.

4 Em­ploy­ees of the can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­it­ies may be al­lowed on­line ac­cess to cer­tain data in the OS­INT portal.

Art. 55 Quattro P  

1 The FIS may op­er­ate an in­form­a­tion sys­tem (Quat­tro P) that is used to identi­fy cer­tain cat­egor­ies of for­eign na­tion­als that enter or leave Switzer­land and to mon­it­or their entry and exit data.

2 It con­tains data ob­tained at bor­der posts in the course of bor­der and cus­toms checks which may be used to identi­fy the per­sons and track their travel move­ments.

3 FIS em­ploy­ees that are re­quired to identi­fy per­sons in or­der to ful­fil tasks in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 6 have on­line ac­cess to Quat­tro P.

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine in a non-pub­lic list the cat­egor­ies of per­sons to be re­cor­ded in Quat­tro P; in do­ing so it shall take ac­count of the threat situ­ation at the time.

Art. 56 ISCO  

1 The com­mu­nic­a­tions mon­it­or­ing in­form­a­tion sys­tem (ISCO) is used to mon­it­or and dir­ect ra­dio and cable com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence.

2 It con­tains data to op­er­ate the in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing equip­ment and for con­trolling and re­port­ing.

3 FIS em­ploy­ees that have the task of car­ry­ing out ra­dio and cable com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence have on­line ac­cess to ISCO.

Art. 57 Residual data memory  

1 The re­sid­ual data memory is used to store data that can­not be im­me­di­ately al­loc­ated to an­oth­er sys­tem in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 48.

2If an in­form­a­tion entry in the re­sid­ual data memory con­tains per­son­al data, an as­sess­ment of rel­ev­ance and ac­cur­acy in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 45 para­graph 1 is made for the entry as a whole and not in re­la­tion to the in­di­vidu­al per­son­al data. An in­di­vidu­al as­sess­ment is made if the per­son­al data is trans­ferred to an­oth­er in­form­a­tion sys­tem.

3 FIS em­ploy­ees that have the task of re­cord­ing, re­search­ing, eval­u­at­ing and as­sur­ing the qual­ity of the data have on­line ac­cess to the re­sid­ual data memory.

4 The max­im­um re­ten­tion peri­od for the data is 10 years.

Section 3 Data from Information Gathering Measures requiring Authorisation

Art. 58  

1 The FIS shall store the data from in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ures re­quir­ing au­thor­isa­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 26 on a case-re­lated basis and sep­ar­ately from the in­form­a­tion sys­tems lis­ted in Art­icle 47.

2 It shall en­sure that per­son­al data ori­gin­at­ing from in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ures re­quir­ing au­thor­isa­tion that is not re­lated to the spe­cif­ic threat situ­ation is not used and is des­troyed at the latest 30 days after con­clu­sion of the meas­ure.

3 If the in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure re­quir­ing au­thor­isa­tion relates to a per­son who be­longs to any of pro­fes­sion­al groups men­tioned in Art­icles 171–173 Crim­PC21, data that is not re­lated to the spe­cif­ic threat situ­ation shall be sep­ar­ated and des­troyed un­der the su­per­vi­sion22 of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court. If the in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure re­quir­ing au­thor­isa­tion relates to an­oth­er per­son, data about which a per­son has the right to re­fuse to testi­fy in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 171–173 Crim­PC must also be des­troyed.

4 In spe­cif­ic cases and sub­ject to com­pli­ance with Art­icle 5 para­graphs 5–8, it may also store per­son­al data in the in­form­a­tion sys­tem provided for this pur­pose in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 47 para­graph 1, provided it con­tains in­form­a­tion re­quired to ful­fil tasks in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 6 para­graph 1.

5 FIS em­ploy­ees that have the task of car­ry­ing out a in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure and eval­u­at­ing the res­ults have on­line ac­cess to the rel­ev­ant data.

6 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late:

a.
the cata­logue of per­son­al data;
b.
the pro­cessing and ac­cess rights;
c.
the re­ten­tion peri­od for the data and the pro­ced­ure for des­troy­ing data;
d.
data se­cur­ity.

21 SR 312.0

22 Cor­rec­ted by the Fed­er­al As­sembly Draft­ing Com­mit­tee (Art. 58 para. 1 ParlA; SR 171.10).

Section 4 Special Provisions on Data Protection

Art. 59 Verification before disclosure  

The FIS shall en­sure be­fore dis­clos­ing any per­son­al data or products that the per­son­al data sat­is­fies the leg­al re­quire­ments of this Act and that its dis­clos­ure is law­ful and ne­ces­sary in the case con­cerned.

Art. 60 Disclosure of personal data to Swiss authorities  

1 The FIS shall dis­close per­son­al data to do­mest­ic au­thor­it­ies if this is ne­ces­sary in or­der to safe­guard in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine the au­thor­it­ies con­cerned.

2 Where in­form­a­tion ob­tained by the FIS may be used by oth­er au­thor­it­ies to pro­sec­ute of­fences, pre­vent ser­i­ous of­fences or to main­tain pub­lic or­der, the FIS shall while pro­tect­ing its sources make this data avail­able to them without be­ing re­ques­ted to do so or on re­quest.

3 The FIS shall al­ways dis­close data from in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ures re­quir­ing au­thor­isa­tion to a pro­sec­u­tion au­thor­ity if it con­tains spe­cif­ic evid­ence of an of­fence in con­nec­tion with the pro­sec­u­tion of which the pro­sec­u­tion au­thor­ity would have been en­titled to or­der a com­par­able crim­in­al pro­ced­ur­al meas­ure.

4 The FIS shall ad­vise the pro­sec­u­tion au­thor­it­ies of the ori­gin of the data. The sub­sequent pro­ced­ure is gov­erned by the Crim­PC23 or the Mil­it­ary Crim­in­al Pro­ced­ure Code of 23 March 197924.

Art. 61 Disclosure of personal data to foreign authorities  

1 The FIS may dis­close per­son­al data or lists of per­son­al data to for­eign coun­tries. It shall veri­fy be­fore any dis­clos­ure wheth­er the leg­al re­quire­ments for dis­clos­ure are met.

2 If the le­gis­la­tion of the re­ceiv­ing state does not guar­an­tee ap­pro­pri­ate data pro­tec­tion, the per­son­al data may be dis­closed to this state in derog­a­tion from Art­icle 6 para­graph 2 of the Fed­er­al Act of 19 June 199225 on Data Pro­tec­tion (FADP) only if Switzer­land main­tains dip­lo­mat­ic re­la­tions with that state and one of the fol­low­ing re­quire­ments is met:

a.
Switzer­land is re­quired by law or by an in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ment to dis­close the per­son­al data to the state.
b.
Dis­clos­ure is re­quired to safe­guard an over­rid­ing pub­lic se­cur­ity in­terest in Switzer­land or in the re­ceiv­ing state such as pre­vent­ing a ser­i­ous crim­in­al of­fence which is also a ser­i­ous of­fence in Switzer­land or bring­ing its per­pet­rat­ors to justice.
c.
It is ne­ces­sary in or­der to jus­ti­fy a re­quest for in­form­a­tion from Switzer­land.
d.
It is in the in­terest of the per­son con­cerned and this per­son has already con­sen­ted to dis­clos­ure or his or her con­sent may be clearly as­sumed in the cir­cum­stances.
e.
It is ne­ces­sary in or­der to pro­tect the life and limb of third parties.

3 The FIS may in spe­cif­ic cases dis­close per­son­al data to states with which Switzer­land main­tains dip­lo­mat­ic re­la­tions if the re­quest­ing state provides a writ­ten as­sur­ance that it has the con­sent of the per­son con­cerned, and the re­quest­ing state will as a res­ult be able to as­sess wheth­er the per­son con­cerned can par­ti­cip­ate in clas­si­fied pro­jects car­ried out by that for­eign state in re­la­tion to in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity or have ac­cess to clas­si­fied in­form­a­tion, ma­ter­i­als or fa­cil­it­ies of that for­eign state.

4 It may dis­close per­son­al data on­line to for­eign se­cur­ity agen­cies whose states guar­an­tee an ap­pro­pri­ate stand­ard of data pro­tec­tion and with which Switzer­land has con­cluded an agree­ment in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 70 para­graph 3.

5 Per­son­al data may not be dis­closed to a for­eign se­cur­ity agency if the per­son con­cerned will be ex­posed to the risk of be­ing pun­ished twice or of ser­i­ous harm to his or her life, limb or free­dom in terms of the Con­ven­tion of 4 Novem­ber 195026 on the Pro­tec­tion of Hu­man Rights and Fun­da­ment­al Freedoms or oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments that Switzer­land has rat­i­fied.

6 If the per­son­al data is re­quired in leg­al pro­ceed­ings, the rel­ev­ant pro­vi­sions on mu­tu­al as­sist­ance ap­ply.

Art. 62 Disclosure of personal data to third parties  

The dis­clos­ure of per­son­al data to third parties is only per­mit­ted if:

a.
the per­son con­cerned has con­sen­ted to dis­clos­ure or dis­clos­ure is in­dis­put­ably in the in­terest of the per­son con­cerned;
b.
dis­clos­ure is ne­ces­sary in or­der to re­pel a ser­i­ous im­me­di­ate danger;
c.
dis­clos­ure is ne­ces­sary in or­der to jus­ti­fy a re­quest for in­form­a­tion.
Art. 63 Right to information  

1 The right to in­form­a­tion re­lat­ing to the ESD, OS­INT portal and Quat­tro P in­form­a­tion sys­tems, the ad­min­is­trat­ive data in GEVER FIS and data in the stor­age sys­tems in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 36 para­graph 5 and 58 is gov­erned by the FADP27.

2 If a per­son re­quests in­form­a­tion on wheth­er the FIS is pro­cessing data on them in the IASA FIS, IASA-GEX FIS, IN­DEX FIS or ISCO in­form­a­tion sys­tems, the re­sid­ual data memory or in the GEVER FIS in­tel­li­gence data, the FIS shall de­fer its re­sponse:

a.
if and to the ex­tent that there are over­rid­ing in­terests that are jus­ti­fied in the files in pre­serving secrecy in re­la­tion to the data about the per­son that is be­ing pro­cessed that are con­nec­ted with:
1.
the ful­fil­ment of a task in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 6, or
2.
a pro­sec­u­tion or oth­er in­vest­ig­a­tion;
b.
if and to the ex­tent that it is re­quired be­cause of over­rid­ing in­terests of third parties; or
c.
if no data about the ap­plic­ant is be­ing pro­cessed.

3 The FIS shall no­ti­fy the ap­plic­ant that it is de­fer­ring the pro­vi­sion of in­form­a­tion and ad­vise the ap­plic­ant that they have the right to re­quest the Fed­er­al Data Pro­tec­tion and In­form­a­tion Com­mis­sion­er (FD­PIC) that he ex­am­ine wheth­er the data, if any, is be­ing law­fully pro­cessed and wheth­er over­rid­ing in­terests in pre­serving secrecy jus­ti­fy the de­fer­ral.

4 As soon as there are no longer any in­terests in pre­serving secrecy, but at the latest on ex­piry of the re­ten­tion peri­od, the FIS shall provide the ap­plic­ant with in­form­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with the FADP un­less there is ex­cess­ive work and ex­pense in­volved.

5 The FIS shall no­ti­fy per­sons in re­spect of whom no data is be­ing pro­cessed of this fact no later than three years after re­ceipt of their re­quest.

Art. 64 Examination by the FDPIC  

1 The FD­PIC shall con­duct an ex­am­in­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 63 para­graph 3 if so re­ques­ted by the ap­plic­ant.

2 It shall no­ti­fy the ap­plic­ant either that no data re­lat­ing to the ap­plic­ant has been un­law­fully pro­cessed or that it has iden­ti­fied er­rors re­lat­ing to the de­fer­ral of the pro­vi­sion of in­form­a­tion and has made a re­com­mend­a­tion as defined in Art­icle 27 FADP28 to the FIS in re­spect of their rec­ti­fic­a­tion.

3 It shall no­ti­fy the ap­plic­ant that he or she may re­quest the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court to re­view this no­ti­fic­a­tion or the im­ple­ment­a­tion of the re­com­mend­a­tion.

4 Art­icle 27 para­graphs 4–6 FADP ap­plies by ana­logy to the re­com­mend­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2.

5 If the ap­plic­ant cred­ibly shows that a de­fer­ral of the pro­vi­sion of in­form­a­tion will cause him or her con­sid­er­able harm that can­not be rec­ti­fied, the FD­PIC may re­com­mend that the FIS is­sue in­form­a­tion im­me­di­ately by way of ex­cep­tion provided this will not pose a risk to in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity.

Art. 65 Review by the Federal Administrative Court  

1 At the re­quest of the ap­plic­ant, the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court shall con­duct a re­view in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 64 para­graph 3 and no­ti­fy the ap­plic­ant there­after that it has done so.

2 If there have been er­rors in re­la­tion to data pro­cessing or the de­fer­ral of the pro­vi­sion of in­form­a­tion, the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court shall is­sue a rul­ing on their rec­ti­fic­a­tion to the FIS. The fore­go­ing also ap­plies if the FD­PIC’s re­com­mend­a­tion is not fol­lowed. The FIS may ap­peal against this rul­ing to the Fed­er­al Su­preme Court.

Art. 66 Form of notification and exclusion of appeals  

1 The no­ti­fic­a­tions in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 63 para­graph 3, 64 para­graph 2 and 65 para­graph 1 shall al­ways be worded in the same way and do not con­tain a state­ment of reas­ons.

2 The per­sons con­cerned may not con­test the no­ti­fic­a­tions.

Art. 67 Exception from the principle of freedom of information  

The Free­dom of In­form­a­tion Act of 17 Decem­ber 200429 does not ap­ply to ac­cess to of­fi­cial doc­u­ments re­lat­ing to in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing in terms of this Act.

Section 5 Archiving

Art. 68  

1 The FIS shall of­fer data and files that are no longer re­quired or that are ear­marked for de­struc­tion to the Fed­er­al Archives. The Fed­er­al Archives shall archive data and files from the FIS in spe­cially se­cured rooms. They are sub­ject to a 50‑year re­ten­tion peri­od.

2 For archive ma­ter­i­als that ori­gin­ate from for­eign se­cur­ity ser­vices, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may ex­tend the re­ten­tion peri­od on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions for a lim­ited peri­od in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 12 of the Archiv­ing Act of 26 June 199830 if the for­eign se­cur­ity ser­vice con­cerned ex­presses re­ser­va­tions against any in­spec­tion.

3 The FIS may in spe­cif­ic cases in­spect per­son­al data dur­ing the re­ten­tion peri­od that it has passed to the Fed­er­al Archives for archiv­ing in or­der to as­sess spe­cif­ic threats to in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity or to safe­guard any oth­er over­rid­ing pub­lic in­terest.

4 It shall des­troy data and files that the Fed­er­al Archives has des­ig­nated as not worth archiv­ing.

Chapter 5 Services

Art. 69  

1 Where there is an in­tel­li­gence in­terest or oth­er pub­lic in­terest, the FIS may provide ser­vices to oth­er fed­er­al and can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies in the fol­low­ing areas in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
se­cure trans­mis­sion;
b.
trans­port of goods or per­sons;
c.
ad­vice and situ­ation as­sess­ment;
d.
pro­tec­tion and de­fence against at­tacks on the in­form­a­tion or com­mu­nic­a­tions in­fra­struc­ture or on secrecy.

2 Where there is an in­tel­li­gence in­terest, the FIS may also provide the fore­go­ing ser­vices to third parties in Switzer­land or abroad.

Chapter 6 Political Governance, Control and Legal Remedies

Section 1 Political governance and Bans

Art. 70 Political governance by the Federal Council  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall ex­er­cise polit­ic­al gov­ernance over the FIS and carry out the fol­low­ing tasks in par­tic­u­lar for that pur­pose:

a.
It shall is­sue the FIS with a ba­sic mis­sion and re­new this mis­sion at least every four years; the ba­sic mis­sion shall re­main secret.
b.
It shall au­thor­ise the watch list in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 72 every year and sub­mit it to the CDel; the watch list is con­fid­en­tial.
c.
It shall de­term­ine the groups every year that must be cat­egor­ised as vi­ol­ent-ex­trem­ist groups and shall take note of the num­ber of vi­ol­ent ex­trem­ists that can­not be as­signed to any known group.
d.
It shall as­sess the threat situ­ation every year and as re­quired in the event of in­cid­ents and shall in­form the Fed­er­al As­sembly and the gen­er­al pub­lic.
e.
It shall or­der the re­quired meas­ures in the case of spe­cial threat situ­ations.
f.
It shall de­cide every year on how the FIS will co­oper­ate with for­eign au­thor­it­ies.

2 The doc­u­ments in con­nec­tion with the tasks in para­graph 1 shall not be made ac­cess­ible to the pub­lic.

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may on its own ini­ti­at­ive con­clude in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments on the in­ter­na­tion­al co­oper­a­tion of the FIS in re­la­tion to the pro­tec­tion of in­form­a­tion or par­ti­cip­a­tion in in­ter­na­tion­al auto­mated in­form­a­tion sys­tems in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 12 para­graph 1 let­ter e.

Art. 71 Safeguarding other important national interests  

1 In the event of a ser­i­ous and im­me­di­ate threat, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may in­struct the FIS to carry out meas­ures in terms of this Act to the ex­tent that these meas­ures are re­quired to safe­guard oth­er im­port­ant na­tion­al in­terests in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 3.

2 It shall in each case de­term­ine the dur­a­tion, pur­pose, nature and ex­tent of the meas­ure.

3 In the case of in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ures re­quir­ing au­thor­isa­tion, the au­thor­isa­tion pro­ced­ure in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 26–33 must be com­plied with.

4 If the Fed­er­al Coun­cil is­sues in­struc­tions in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1, it shall in­form the CDel with­in 24 hours.

Art. 72 Watch list  

1 The watch list con­tains de­tails of or­gan­isa­tions and groups that are reas­on­ably as­sumed to pose a threat to in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity.

2 The as­sump­tion is deemed to be reas­on­able where an or­gan­isa­tion or group ap­pears on a list kept by the United Na­tions or the European Uni­on; in this case, this or­gan­isa­tion or group may be in­cluded on the watch list.

3 An or­gan­isa­tion or group shall be re­moved from the watch list if:

a.
the as­sump­tion that it poses a threat to in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity no longer ap­plies; or
b.
it no longer ap­pears on any list in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2 and there are no par­tic­u­lar reas­ons why it should pose a threat to in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity.

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall set out in an or­din­ance the cri­ter­ia by which the watch list is drawn up; it shall de­term­ine the peri­od­icity for re­view­ing the list.

Art. 73 Order banning an activity  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may ban a nat­ur­al per­son or an or­gan­isa­tion or group from car­ry­ing out an activ­ity that poses a spe­cif­ic threat to in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity and dir­ectly or in­dir­ectly serves to propag­ate, sup­port or oth­er­wise pro­mote ter­ror­ist or vi­ol­ent-ex­trem­ist activ­it­ies.

2 A ban may be im­posed for a max­im­um of five years. If the re­quire­ments are still met on ex­piry of this peri­od, the ban may be ex­ten­ded for a max­im­um of five fur­ther years.

3 The ap­plic­ant de­part­ment shall reg­u­larly re­view wheth­er the re­quire­ments are still be­ing met. If this is no longer the case, it shall ap­ply to the Fed­er­al Coun­cil for the ban to be lif­ted.

Art. 74 Organisation ban  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may ban an or­gan­isa­tion or group that dir­ectly or in­dir­ectly propag­ates, sup­ports or oth­er­wise pro­motes ter­ror­ist or vi­ol­ent-ex­trem­ist activ­it­ies and thus poses a spe­cif­ic threat to in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity.

2 A ban shall be based on a United Na­tions res­ol­u­tion on a ban or on sanc­tions; the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall con­sult the com­mit­tees re­spons­ible for se­cur­ity policy.31

3 A ban may be im­posed for a max­im­um of five years. If the re­quire­ments are still met on ex­piry of this peri­od, the ban may be ex­ten­ded for a max­im­um of five fur­ther years.

4 Any per­son who on Swiss ter­rit­ory par­ti­cip­ates in an or­gan­isa­tion or group banned un­der para­graph 1, sup­ports it by provid­ing hu­man or oth­er re­sources, or­gan­ises pro­pa­ganda cam­paigns for its aims, re­cruits for it or in any oth­er way pro­motes its activ­it­ies shall, be li­able to a cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing five years or to a mon­et­ary pen­alty.32

4bis The court may re­duce the pen­alty in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 4 (Art. 48aSCC33) if the of­fend­er makes an ef­fort to foil the fur­ther activ­it­ies of the or­gan­isa­tion or group.34

5 It is an of­fence for any per­son to com­mit the fore­go­ing of­fence out­side Switzer­land if that per­son is ar­res­ted in Switzer­land and not ex­tra­dited. Art­icle 7 para­graphs 4 and 5 SCC35 ap­plies.

6 The pro­sec­u­tion and ad­ju­dic­a­tion of acts un­der para­graphs 4 and 5 are sub­ject to fed­er­al jur­is­dic­tion.36

7 The re­spons­ible au­thor­it­ies shall no­ti­fy the FIS of any judg­ments, pen­alty or­ders and de­cisions to dis­miss pro­ceed­ings im­me­di­ately and free of charge, provid­ing cop­ies of all re­lated doc­u­ments.37

31 Amended by An­nex No II 1 of the FA of 25 Sept. 2020 on the Ap­prov­al and Im­ple­ment­a­tion of the Coun­cil of Europe Con­ven­tion on the Pre­ven­tion of Ter­ror­ism and its Ad­di­tion­al Pro­tocol and the Strength­en­ing of Crim­in­al Justice In­stru­ments for com­bat­ing Ter­ror­ism and Or­gan­ised Crime, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2021 (AS 2021 360; BBl 2018 6427).

32 Amended by An­nex No II 1 of the FA of 25 Sept. 2020 on the Ap­prov­al and Im­ple­ment­a­tion of the Coun­cil of Europe Con­ven­tion on the Pre­ven­tion of Ter­ror­ism and its Ad­di­tion­al Pro­tocol and the Strength­en­ing of Crim­in­al Justice In­stru­ments for com­bat­ing Ter­ror­ism and Or­gan­ised Crime, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2021 (AS 2021 360; BBl 2018 6427).

33 SR 311.0

34 In­ser­ted by An­nex No II 1 of the FA of 25 Sept. 2020 on the Ap­prov­al and Im­ple­ment­a­tion of the Coun­cil of Europe Con­ven­tion on the Pre­ven­tion of Ter­ror­ism and its Ad­di­tion­al Pro­tocol and the Strength­en­ing of Crim­in­al Justice In­stru­ments for com­bat­ing Ter­ror­ism and Or­gan­ised Crime, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2021 (AS 2021 360; BBl 2018 6427).

35 SR 311.0

36 Amended by An­nex No II 1 of the FA of 25 Sept. 2020 on the Ap­prov­al and Im­ple­ment­a­tion of the Coun­cil of Europe Con­ven­tion on the Pre­ven­tion of Ter­ror­ism and its Ad­di­tion­al Pro­tocol and the Strength­en­ing of Crim­in­al Justice In­stru­ments for com­bat­ing Ter­ror­ism and Or­gan­ised Crime, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2021 (AS 2021 360; BBl 2018 6427).

37 Amended by An­nex No II 1 of the FA of 25 Sept. 2020 on the Ap­prov­al and Im­ple­ment­a­tion of the Coun­cil of Europe Con­ven­tion on the Pre­ven­tion of Ter­ror­ism and its Ad­di­tion­al Pro­tocol and the Strength­en­ing of Crim­in­al Justice In­stru­ments for com­bat­ing Ter­ror­ism and Or­gan­ised Crime, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2021 (AS 2021 360; BBl 2018 6427).

Section 2 Control and Supervision of the FIS

Art. 75 Self-control by the FIS  

The FIS shall en­sure by means of suit­able qual­ity as­sur­ance and con­trol meas­ures that the law­ful im­ple­ment­a­tion of this Act both with­in the FIS and with­in the can­ton­al se­cur­ity ser­vices is guar­an­teed.

Art. 76 Independent supervisory authority  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall es­tab­lish an in­de­pend­ent au­thor­ity to over­see the FIS.

2 In re­sponse to a pro­pos­al from the DDPS, it shall ap­point the dir­ect­or of the in­de­pend­ent su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity for a term of six years.

3 The dir­ect­or shall be re-ap­poin­ted for a fur­ther term un­less the Fed­er­al Coun­cil rules at the latest six months be­fore the end of the cur­rent term that this is not ap­pro­pri­ate on ob­ject­ively reas­on­able grounds.

4 The dir­ect­or may resign from the post as of the end of any month sub­ject to giv­ing six months’ no­tice there­of to the Fed­er­al Coun­cil.

5 He or she may be re­moved from the post by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil be­fore the ex­piry of the term of­fice if he or she:

a.
breaches his or her of­fi­cial du­ties wil­fully or through gross neg­li­gence; or
b.
be­comes per­man­ently in­cap­able of ex­er­cising of­fice.
Art. 77 Status of the independent supervisory authority  

1 The in­de­pend­ent su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity shall carry out its tasks in­de­pend­ently; it is not bound by dir­ect­ives from oth­er au­thor­it­ies. It is as­signed to the DDPS for ad­min­is­trat­ive pur­poses.

2 It has its own budget. It ap­points its own staff.

3 It con­sti­tutes it­self. It shall reg­u­late its or­gan­isa­tion and its work­ing meth­ods in its own pro­ced­ur­al rules.

4 The em­ploy­ment con­tracts of the head and the staff of the in­de­pend­ent su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity are gov­erned by the Fed­er­al Per­son­nel Act of 24 March 200038. The head is not sub­ject to the as­sess­ment sys­tem in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 4 para­graph 3 of the Fed­er­al Per­son­nel Act.39

38 SR 172.220.1

39 The cor­rec­tion of the FA Draft­ing Com­mit­tee of 12 March 2020, pub­lished 24 March 2020, relates to the French text only (AS 2020 1057).

Art. 78 Tasks, rights to information and recommendations of the supervisory authority  

1 The in­de­pend­ent su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity shall over­see the in­tel­li­gence ser­vice activ­it­ies car­ried out by the FIS, can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­it­ies and third parties and oth­er agen­cies del­eg­ated these tasks by FIS. It shall audit these activ­it­ies to con­firm their leg­al­ity, ex­pedi­ency and ef­fect­ive­ness.

2 It shall co­ordin­ate its activ­it­ies with par­lia­ment­ary su­per­vi­sion activ­it­ies and with oth­er fed­er­al and can­ton­al su­per­vi­sion bod­ies.

3 It shall in­form the DDPS about its activ­it­ies in an an­nu­al re­port; this re­port shall be pub­lished.

4 It has ac­cess to all rel­ev­ant in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ments and ac­cess to all the premises of the sub­jects of su­per­vi­sion. It may re­quest cop­ies of doc­u­ments. With­in the scope of its su­per­vi­sion activ­it­ies, it may re­quest in­form­a­tion from and may in­spect files held by oth­er fed­er­al and can­ton­al agen­cies, provided this in­form­a­tion is re­lated to the co­oper­a­tion between these agen­cies and the sub­jects of su­per­vi­sion.

5 In or­der to carry out its su­per­vi­sion activ­it­ies, it may have ac­cess to all the in­form­a­tion sys­tems and data col­lec­tions of the sub­jects of su­per­vi­sion; it may also have ac­cess to sens­it­ive per­son­al data. It may only store the data thereby ob­tained un­til the audit is com­pleted. The pro­pri­et­ors of the data col­lec­tion con­cerned must keep a re­cord of ac­cess to the vari­ous data col­lec­tions.

6 The in­de­pend­ent su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity shall provide the DDPS with a writ­ten re­port on the res­ults of its audit. It may is­sue re­com­mend­a­tions.

7 The DDPS shall en­sure that the re­com­mend­a­tions are im­ple­men­ted. If the DDPS re­jects a re­com­mend­a­tion, it shall sub­mit the same to the Fed­er­al Coun­cil for a de­cision.

Art. 79 Independent control authority for radio and cable communications intelligence  

1 An in­de­pend­ent con­trol au­thor­ity with­in the Ad­min­is­tra­tion shall veri­fy the leg­al­ity of ra­dio com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence and su­per­vise the con­duct of au­thor­ised and cleared cable com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence as­sign­ments. In car­ry­ing out its tasks, it is not bound by dir­ect­ives from oth­er au­thor­it­ies. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall ap­point its mem­bers.

2 The con­trol au­thor­ity shall ex­am­ine the as­sign­ments giv­en to the ser­vice car­ry­ing out com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence and the pro­cessing and passing on of in­form­a­tion that this ser­vice has ob­tained. For this pur­pose, it shall be gran­ted ac­cess by the re­spons­ible agen­cies to all rel­ev­ant in­form­a­tion and fa­cil­it­ies.

3 It may is­sue re­com­mend­a­tions based on its audit and re­quest that the DDPS ter­min­ate ra­dio com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence as­sign­ments and de­lete in­form­a­tion. Its re­com­mend­a­tions, re­quests and re­ports are not made pub­lic.

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the com­pos­i­tion and the or­gan­isa­tion of the con­trol au­thor­ity, the re­mu­ner­a­tion of its mem­bers and the or­gan­isa­tion of its Sec­ret­ari­at. The term of of­fice amounts to four years.

Art. 80 Supervision and control by the Federal Council  

1 The DDPS shall in­form the Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­larly about the threat situ­ation and the activ­it­ies of the FIS.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late:

a.
fin­an­cial su­per­vi­sion over the spheres of activ­ity of the FIS that re­quire par­tic­u­lar con­fid­en­ti­al­ity;
b.
the min­im­um re­quire­ments for con­trol in the can­tons and the re­spons­ib­il­it­ies of fed­er­al su­per­vi­sion bod­ies.

3 In­ter­na­tion­al ad­min­is­trat­ive agree­ments con­cluded by the FIS that are of long-term dur­a­tion, have sub­stan­tial fin­an­cial con­sequences or of which the Fed­er­al Coun­cil should be no­ti­fied for leg­al or polit­ic­al reas­ons re­quire ap­prov­al by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil. This re­quire­ment of ap­prov­al also ap­plies to un­writ­ten agree­ments. The agree­ments may only be im­ple­men­ted once ap­prov­al is giv­en.

4 The DDPS shall in­form the Fed­er­al Coun­cil and the CDel an­nu­ally or as re­quired about the pur­pose and num­ber of ali­as iden­tit­ies be­ing used by em­ploy­ees of the FIS or can­ton­al se­cur­ity agen­cies. The num­ber of newly is­sued iden­tity doc­u­ments must be shown sep­ar­ately.

5 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall in­form the CDel an­nu­ally and as re­quired about bans on activ­it­ies and the res­ults of the reg­u­lar re­view in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 73 para­graph 3 and about bans of or­gan­isa­tions.

Art. 81 Parliamentary oversight  

1 Par­lia­ment­ary over­sight of the activ­it­ies of the FIS and the can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­it­ies act­ing on be­half of the Con­fed­er­a­tion in im­ple­ment­ing this Act is the re­spons­ib­il­ity in their re­spect­ive spheres of the CDel and the Fin­ance Del­eg­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with the Par­lia­ment Act of 13 Decem­ber 200240.

2 Can­ton­al par­lia­ment­ary su­per­vis­ory bod­ies may over­see im­ple­ment­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 85 para­graph 1.

Art. 82 Cantonal supervision  

1 Em­ploy­ees of the can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­it­ies that are en­trus­ted by the can­tons with tasks in terms of this Act are gov­erned by can­ton­al pub­lic ser­vice le­gis­la­tion and sub­ject to the can­ton­al su­per­vi­sion of their su­per­i­ors.

2 Su­per­vi­sion in the can­tons is the re­spons­ib­il­ity of the su­per­i­or au­thor­it­ies to the can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­ity con­cerned. These au­thor­it­ies may em­ploy a con­trol au­thor­ity in or­der to provide as­sist­ance with su­per­vi­sion; this body must be sep­ar­ate from the can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­ity and ac­count­able to the su­per­i­or au­thor­it­ies.

3 In or­der to ex­er­cise its su­per­vis­ory activ­it­ies, the can­ton­al su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity shall be provided with a list of as­sign­ments is­sued by the FIS and the watch list in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 72.

4 The can­ton­al su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity may in­spect the data that the can­ton is pro­cessing on be­half of the Con­fed­er­a­tion. In­spec­tion may be re­fused if es­sen­tial se­cur­ity in­terests so re­quire.

5 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the in­spec­tion pro­ced­ure. In the case of dis­putes, an ac­tion may be brought in the Fed­er­al Su­preme Court in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 120 para­graph 1 let­ter b of the Fed­er­al Su­preme Court Act of 17 June 200541.

6 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the sup­port giv­en to the can­ton­al su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity by fed­er­al agen­cies.

Section 3 Legal Remedies

Art. 83  

1 Rul­ings based on this Act is­sued by fed­er­al bod­ies may be con­tested by ap­peal to the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court.

2 An ap­peal against a rul­ing on the spe­cial ob­lig­a­tion im­posed on private in­di­vidu­als to provide in­form­a­tion and on a ban on activ­it­ies or or­gan­isa­tions does not have the ef­fect of sus­pend­ing the rul­ing.

3 The peri­od al­lowed for fil­ing the ap­peal against an or­der for an in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ure re­quir­ing au­thor­isa­tion be­gins on the day that no­tice of the meas­ure is re­ceived.

4 Ap­peal de­cisions of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court may be ap­pealed to the Fed­er­al Su­preme Court. The pro­ced­ure is gov­erned by the Fed­er­al Su­preme Court Act of 17 June 200542.

Chapter 7 Final Provisions

Art. 84 Implementing provisions  

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall is­sue the im­ple­ment­ing pro­vi­sions.

Art. 85 Implementation by the cantons  

1 The can­tons shall gath­er and pro­cess in­form­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 6 para­graph 1 let­ter a without hav­ing to be re­ques­ted to do so or based on a spe­cial as­sign­ment is­sued by the FIS. When do­ing so, the can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­it­ies have the power to make use on their own ini­ti­at­ive of in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing meas­ures not re­quir­ing au­thor­isa­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 13–15, 19, 20, 23 and 25.

2 The can­ton­al ex­ec­ut­ive au­thor­it­ies shall sub­mit a re­port to the FIS without hav­ing to be re­ques­ted to do so if they identi­fy a spe­cif­ic threat to in­tern­al or ex­tern­al se­cur­ity.

3 The FIS shall work with the can­tons to im­ple­ment this Act, in par­tic­u­lar by provid­ing tech­nic­al re­sources, through pro­tect­ive and mon­it­or­ing meas­ures and by of­fer­ing joint train­ing courses.

4 The can­tons shall with­in the lim­its of their ca­pa­cit­ies sup­port the FIS in im­ple­ment­ing its tasks, in par­tic­u­lar by:

a.
provid­ing the re­quired tech­nic­al re­sources;
b.
or­gan­ising the re­quired pro­tect­ive and ob­ser­va­tion meas­ures;
c.
as­sist­ing with train­ing.

5 The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall with­in the lim­its of the ap­proved cred­its com­pensate the can­tons for their sup­port in im­ple­ment­ing this Act. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall fix the level of com­pens­a­tion based on the num­ber of per­sons primar­ily em­ployed to carry out fed­er­al tasks.

Art. 86 Repeal and amendment of other enactments  

The re­peal and the amend­ment of oth­er en­act­ments are reg­u­lated in the An­nex.

Art. 87 Coordination with the Amendment of 25 September 2015 of the Civilian Service Act  

43

43 The co­ordin­a­tion pro­vi­sion may be con­sul­ted un­der AS 2017 4095.

Art. 88 Referendum and commencement  

1 This Act is sub­ject to an op­tion­al ref­er­en­dum.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine the com­mence­ment date.

Com­mence­ment date: 1 Septem­ber 201744

44 FCD of 16 Aug. 2017.

Annex

(Art. 86)

Repeal and amendment of other legislation

I

The Federal Act of 3 October 200845 on Responsibilities in the Area of the Civilian Intelligence Service is repealed.

II

The legislation below is amended as follows:

...46

45 [AS 2009 6565, 2012 3745Annex No 1 5525, 2014 3223]

46 The amendments may be consulted under AS 2017 4095.

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