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

¹ Out­side crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity may or­der sur­veil­lance of post and tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions in or­der to find a per­son on whom a leg­ally bind­ing and en­force­able cus­todi­al sen­tence or cus­todi­al meas­ure has been im­posed, provided the pre­vi­ous search meas­ures have been un­suc­cess­ful or if a search would be fu­tile or would be dis­pro­por­tion­ately dif­fi­cult in the ab­sence of sur­veil­lance.

² The com­pet­ent au­thor­ity may em­ploy tech­nic­al equip­ment in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 269^bis Crim­PC⁴⁴ and com­puter pro­grams pur­su­ant to Art­icle 269^terCrim­PC, provided the pre­vi­ous meas­ures for tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions sur­veil­lance pur­su­ant to Art­icle 269 Crim­PC have been un­suc­cess­ful, or the search us­ing these meas­ures would be fu­tile or dis­pro­por­tion­ately dif­fi­cult. It shall pro­duce stat­ist­ics on sur­veil­lance in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 269^bis and 269^ter Crim­PC.

³ It may also in­spect data on third parties, provided the re­quire­ments of Art­icle 270 Crim­PC are met mu­tatis mutandis.