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

In re­la­tion to tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions sur­veil­lance, the Ser­vice has the fol­low­ing ad­di­tion­al tasks:

a.

If sev­er­al pro­viders of tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions ser­vices are in­volved in provid­ing the tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions ser­vice to be placed un­der sur­veil­lance, the Ser­vice shall in­struct the pro­vider re­spons­ible for the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions ser­vice or the pro­vider that can con­duct the sur­veil­lance with the least tech­nic­al ef­fort to carry out the sur­veil­lance. The Ser­vice shall base its in­struc­tions on the in­form­a­tion provided by the au­thor­ity that ordered the sur­veil­lance.

b.

It shall re­ceive the trans­mit­ted tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions of the per­son un­der sur­veil­lance from the pro­viders of tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions ser­vices, store them and al­low the or­der­ing au­thor­ity or the au­thor­ity des­ig­nated by the or­der­ing au­thor­ity to have ac­cess thereto.

c.

It shall in­struct the pro­viders of tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions ser­vices to trans­mit data col­lec­ted in the course of sur­veil­lance dir­ectly to the or­der­ing au­thor­ity (dir­ect trans­mis­sion) or the au­thor­ity des­ig­nated by the or­der­ing au­thor­ity if, for tech­nic­al reas­ons, it is not able to re­ceive the tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions, to store them or to give ac­cess to these au­thor­it­ies; in such an event, these au­thor­it­ies shall store the data them­selves.

d.

It shall re­ceive the sec­ond­ary tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions data of tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions from pro­viders of tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions ser­vices, store it, and give ac­cess to the or­der­ing au­thor­ity or the au­thor­ity des­ig­nated by the or­der­ing au­thor­ity.

e.

In cases where the en­tit­ies ob­liged to co­oper­ate are merely sub­ject to an ob­lig­a­tion of tol­er­a­tion and co­oper­a­tion (Arts. 26 para. 6, 27 paras 1 and 2, 28 and 29) or where non-stand­ard­ised sur­veil­lance is to be car­ried out (Art. 32 para. 2), it shall take the steps re­quired to en­sure that sur­veil­lance can still be car­ried out.

f.

It shall veri­fy the abil­ity of pro­viders of tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions ser­vices to provide in­form­a­tion and con­duct sur­veil­lance (Arts. 32–34).

g.

At the re­quest of the or­der­ing au­thor­ity, it shall fil­ter cer­tain data types out of the data flow.