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

¹ The Con­fed­er­a­tion may op­er­ate a ser­vice for re­cord­ing elec­tro-mag­net­ic emis­sions from tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions sys­tems loc­ated abroad (ra­dio com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence).

² Ra­dio com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence has the fol­low­ing pur­poses:

a.

in­form­a­tion gath­er­ing about events out­side Switzer­land that are of sig­ni­fic­ance to se­cur­ity, in par­tic­u­lar re­lat­ing to ter­ror­ism, the pro­lif­er­a­tion of weapons of mass de­struc­tion and for­eign con­flicts that have an ef­fect on Switzer­land;

b.

safe­guard­ing of oth­er im­port­ant na­tion­al in­terests in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 3.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the fields of com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence, and the or­gan­isa­tion and pro­ced­ures for ra­dio com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence. It shall spe­cify for how long the re­cor­ded com­mu­nic­a­tions and con­nec­tion data may be re­tained by the ser­vice car­ry­ing out the com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence.

⁴ It shall in par­tic­u­lar en­sure that from the re­cor­ded com­mu­nic­a­tions the ser­vice car­ry­ing out the com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence:

a.

only passes on in­form­a­tion re­lat­ing to events out­side Switzer­land that are of sig­ni­fic­ance to se­cur­ity;

b.

only passes on in­form­a­tion about per­sons in Switzer­land if the in­form­a­tion is re­quired to un­der­stand an event abroad and has been an­onymised be­fore­hand.

⁵ The ser­vice car­ry­ing out the com­mu­nic­a­tions in­tel­li­gence shall pass on in­form­a­tion about events in Switzer­land ob­tained from the re­cor­ded com­mu­nic­a­tions if the in­form­a­tion provides evid­ence of a spe­cif­ic threat to in­tern­al se­cur­ity in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 6 para­graph 1 let­ter a.

⁶ If it comes across re­cor­ded com­mu­nic­a­tions in the course of its activ­it­ies that con­tain no in­form­a­tion about events out­side Switzer­land that are of sig­ni­fic­ance to se­cur­ity and no evid­ence of any spe­cif­ic threat to in­tern­al se­cur­ity, it shall des­troy the re­cord­ings as quickly as pos­sible.