Federal Act
on the Surveillance of Post and Telecommunications
(SPTA)

¹ The length of time that data col­lec­ted in crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings must be re­tained in the pro­cessing sys­tem is gov­erned by the rules on crim­in­al case files un­der the ap­plic­able crim­in­al pro­ced­ur­al law.

² The data col­lec­ted in ex­e­cu­tion of a re­quest for mu­tu­al leg­al as­sist­ance shall be re­tained in the pro­cessing sys­tem for as long as ne­ces­sary for the ob­ject­ive pur­sued, but no longer than 30 years after con­clu­sion of sur­veil­lance.

³ The data col­lec­ted as part of the search for a miss­ing per­son shall be re­tained in the pro­cessing sys­tem for as long as ne­ces­sary for the ob­ject­ive pur­sued, but no longer than 30 years after con­clu­sion of sur­veil­lance.

⁴ The length of time that data col­lec­ted in tra­cing a per­son on whom a cus­todi­al sen­tence has been im­posed must be re­tained in the pro­cessing sys­tem is gov­erned by the ap­plic­able crim­in­al pro­ced­ur­al law. Data col­lec­ted in tra­cing a per­son on whom a cus­todi­al meas­ure has been im­posed must be re­tained in the pro­cessing sys­tem for as long as ne­ces­sary for the ob­ject­ive pur­sued, but no longer than 30 years after con­clu­sion of sur­veil­lance.

^4bisThe data col­lec­ted in im­ple­ment­ing the In­telSA²³ shall be re­tained in the pro­cessing sys­tem for as long as ne­ces­sary for the ob­ject­ive pur­sued, but no longer than 30 years after con­clu­sion of sur­veil­lance.²⁴

^4ter The data col­lec­ted in the course of mo­bile phone loc­al­isa­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 23q para­graph 3 ISA²⁵ shall be re­tained in the pro­cessing sys­tem after con­clu­sion of sur­veil­lance for a max­im­um of 100 days. If there is a spe­cif­ic reas­on to as­sume that the data will be re­quired in crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings, the re­ten­tion peri­od is gov­erned by the ap­plic­able rules of crim­in­al pro­ced­ure.²⁶

⁵ The au­thor­ity re­spons­ible for the pro­ceed­ings or, if there is no au­thor­ity that is still re­spons­ible for the pro­ceed­ings any longer, the last au­thor­ity re­spons­ible is re­spons­ible for com­pli­ance with the peri­ods laid down in para­graphs 1–4^ter.²⁷ It shall in­form the Ser­vice be­fore ex­piry of the re­ten­tion peri­od as to what is to be done with the data un­der the ap­plic­able law pri­or to its de­le­tion from the sys­tem. Thirty years after con­clu­sion of sur­veil­lance, the Ser­vice shall re­quest the au­thor­ity to cla­ri­fy what is to be done with the data still avail­able in the sys­tem.

⁶ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall spe­cify how com­pli­ance with the re­ten­tion peri­ods is to be guar­an­teed; it shall reg­u­late the de­tails of the in­form­a­tion ac­cord­ing to para­graph 5.