EU intelligence centre facing new challenges

The European Union installs a „Cyber Diplomacy Toolbox“, in which secret services should play a bigger role. Among other things, the member states want to find a common diplomatic response to „malicious cyber activities“ as quickly as possible. The new tasks of the Intelligence Situation Centre are highly controversial.

The European Union has no competence to coordinate secret services. Nevertheless, there is a network for them in Brussels. The EU Intelligence Analysis Centre (INTCEN) employs around 100 staff. They are not allowed to conduct their own spying or use informerants. Instead, they process „finished intelligence“ material from the Member States. INTCEN’s products include „intelligence assessments“, „strategic assessments“ and „special reports and briefings“. „EU intelligence centre facing new challenges“ weiterlesen

Border controls in Bavaria and Austria: Police to extract mobile phones

With the takeover of the sovereign border security, the Free State is also using new technology. The extraction of telephones is supposed to help in the detection of „smuggler networks“. Another application is „contactless identity verification“. The projects are perfecting the expansion of biometric EU databases.

Two years ago, the Bundestag passed the „law for better enforcement of the obligation to leave the country“. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) may now search mobile phones and other electronic devices of refugees in order to process their asylum applications. The information should help to determine their origin. The authorities evaluate, for example, the country codes of called telephone numbers and contacts and the domain endings of called websites. Geodata and the language used in text messages are also analysed. This practice could now be extended to border controls. „Border controls in Bavaria and Austria: Police to extract mobile phones“ weiterlesen

Significantly more „Silent SMS“ with German police authorities

Police in Germany are a matter for the federal states, this also applies to the surveillance of telecommunications. In Schleswig-Holstein alone, local police departments send as many „Silent SMS“ as the Federal Police. A decision of the Federal Court of Justice should contain this practice, but a change is hardly recognizable.

German authorities are increasingly using mobile phones as a tracking device. This results from the semi-annual overview recently published by the Federal Ministry of the Interior in response to a parliamentary question. According to the report, the Federal Police sent 50,654 „Silent SMS“ in the second half of the year, compared with 38,990 in the previous half-year. Only the figures for the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) show a decrease. In the second half of the year, the authority sent 21,337 „Silent SMS“, about 10,000 fewer than previous. „Significantly more „Silent SMS“ with German police authorities“ weiterlesen

Fight against small drones: Police use military technology

The police and military are increasingly confronted with the unwanted use of commercially available drones. For countermeasures, they must be quickly detected and analyzed. German arms companies have developed various methods to then combat the aircrafts.

Every year, around one million small drones are sold in the USA and Europe alone. This figure was quoted last week by the Deputy Director of the German Federal Armed Forces Aircraft Technical Service (WTD 61) during a technical demonstration at the department’s headquarters in Manching. This refers to multicopters with four or more rotors carrying a camera or other sensors, sometimes also called unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

In Germany, the owner’s data must be affixed to a sticker on the device. In many countries, however, the sale or use of unmanned systems is not regulated, which can also make them a „terrorist tool“ for the military in the field. The German government writes that small UAV’s have „proven to be a versatile technical aid in the planning, execution and evaluation of operations by terrorist organisations“. In the meantime they have been used for „airborne reconnaissance and espionage, to identify potential weak points in the run-up to attacks as well as to direct plunging fire“. „Fight against small drones: Police use military technology“ weiterlesen

„Crawling, monitoring and gathering“: EU funds search engine for criminal Internet content

European police authorities and arms companies are working on a „powerful terrorism intelligence platform“ on the Internet. It is intended to track down material to promote violence and radicalisation. The technology thus goes far beyond the threat of upload filters.

In the security research programme „TENSOR“, the European Union is developing automatic detection of criminal content on the Internet. The technology is to find material that can „contribute to the advancement of terrorist violence and radicalisation“ in an automated process. On the project website, this is referred to as „crawling, monitoring and gathering“. Described as a tool for „Internet penetration“, it should also operate in multilingual social media and use „dialogue-empowered bots“ with artificial intelligence. Found criminal content will then be categorized and interpreted so that it can be used by law enforcement agencies. The software would also be used in Darknet.

The project is the technical implementation of the demand for „early detection“ of terrorist organised activities, radicalisation and recruitment as called for by the European Union in the Council Conclusions and a Commission paper of 2017. It calls not only for the rapid removal of „illegal online content“, but also for its „proactive detection“. „„Crawling, monitoring and gathering“: EU funds search engine for criminal Internet content“ weiterlesen

Misuse of warrants: Interpol wants to clean up

Despite an explicit ban, many countries use Interpol arrest warrants to pursue their opposition. The police organisation therefore wants to examine tens of thousands of alerts issued between 2014 and 2016 more closely. The main focus is on possible asylum seekers.

Article 3 of Interpol’s statutes prohibits any „any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character“. The international warrants for arrest (the so-called „Red Notices“) must not undermine this policy. However, some states have used the Interpol arrest warrants to prosecute government opponents. A special „Notices and Diffusion Task Force“ to deal with this has recently started work. It now consists of seven members from Germany, Slovakia, Croatia, Sweden and Ukraine, according to a EU document now published by the British organisation Statewatch. „Misuse of warrants: Interpol wants to clean up“ weiterlesen