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

¹ Pro­viders of tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions ser­vices shall on re­quest sup­ply the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion to the Ser­vice or, in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 17 para­graph c, to the or­der­ing au­thor­ity or the au­thor­ity des­ig­nated by the or­der­ing au­thor­ity:

a.

the con­tent of the tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions to and from the per­son un­der sur­veil­lance;

b.

the sec­ond­ary tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions data of the tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions to and from the per­son un­der sur­veil­lance.

² They must also:

a.

provide the in­form­a­tion re­quired to carry out the sur­veil­lance;

b.

tol­er­ate sur­veil­lance car­ried out by the Ser­vice or by per­sons it des­ig­nates; for this pur­pose they shall grant im­me­di­ate ac­cess to their fa­cil­it­ies;

c.

re­move any en­cryp­tion they have ap­plied.

³ Pro­viders of tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions ser­vices who are in­volved in provid­ing the tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions ser­vice un­der sur­veil­lance must sup­ply their data to the Ser­vice or to the pro­vider in­struc­ted to carry out the sur­veil­lance.

⁴ The or­der may re­quire real-time sur­veil­lance to be car­ried out and the han­dover of the re­tained sec­ond­ary tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions data of tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions from past com­mu­nic­a­tions (ret­ro­act­ive sur­veil­lance).

⁵ Pro­viders of tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions ser­vices must re­tain the sec­ond­ary tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions data of tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions for 6 months.

⁶ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may ex­empt pro­viders of tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions ser­vices from cer­tain stat­utory ob­lig­a­tions, in par­tic­u­lar if they of­fer ser­vices of minor eco­nom­ic im­port­ance or in the field of edu­ca­tion. It shall not ex­empt them from the ob­lig­a­tion to sup­ply on re­quest the sec­ond­ary tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions data of tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions avail­able to them re­lat­ing to the per­son un­der sur­veil­lance and the ob­lig­a­tions re­ferred to in para­graph 2.