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

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.