The Communications Privacy Authority (CPA) has released data on how "legal" surveillance has exploded in recent years. The ADAE in the report states that it had approximately 41.000 prosecutorial orders involving declassifications for national security reasons from 2019 to 2021.
Specifically, in the 2021 activity report, it states that it had 15.475 prosecutorial orders regarding the removal of confidentiality for reasons of national security, compared to 13.751 in 2020 and 11.680 in 2019.
http://www.adae.gr/fileadmin/docs/pepragmena/2021-2/Pepragmena_2021.pdf
The Communications Privacy Authority also says the government's decision to ban disclosure of the surveillance on national security grounds is inconsistent with the European Convention on Human Rights.
Meanwhile the new bill states that its Director EYP will decide what it is malware and what not, and does not restore the provision of the Human Rights Act on the citizen's right to know the reasons for his monitoring.
ADAE, however, with a press release released today, announces its absence from the new bill. Read the press release below:
This bill drastically changes the regulatory framework that has been in place for almost 30 years regarding the depriving of communications and modifies in many critical points the mode of ADAE.
Despite the capital importance of the content of the bill, despite the fact that the Constitution itself provides in Article 19 §2 as a guarantee to ensure the privacy of communications (a fundamental right absolutely inviolable in the wording of the constitutional text) the GDPR and, finally, despite what happened in the last months, the Authority was never properly informed, nor was it requested in an institutionally necessary way to formulate its opinion, so that this institutional bill is the result of a sober and scientific dialogue, for the benefit of the right.
ADAE expresses its surprise and its institutional displeasure at this institutional omission. Despite this and within the suffocating time frame of the procedure to be followed before the Hellenic Parliament, the Authority, ignoring the need to protect the right, will formulate its opinion on the provisions of the bill in the next few days.
From the plenary session
