Swiss government accused of massive online surveillance

(Symbol image) Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency leaker, is defending his disclosure of top-secret U.S. spying programs in an online chat with Britain's Guardian newspaper and attacked U.S. officials for calling him a traitor. Keystone / Kin Cheung

The Swiss Federal Intelligence Service (SRC) is allegedly monitoring the digital activities of the Swiss population, particularly on their mobile phones and computers, according to the German-language magazine Republik.ch on Tuesday.

What’s more, Swiss spies are said to be storing far more information than they promised when the new intelligence law was introduced. The SRC denies these accusations.

The Swiss Government is allegedly able to access the messages and emails of the population thanks to the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service (SRC), at least according to the German-language media Republik.chExternal link.

“Since the Intelligence Act came into force in 2017, the internet traffic of Swiss citizens has been analysed on a massive scale. What’s more, all the data is recorded with a view to possible retroactive searches”, it writes.

+Surveillance: The exception has become the rule

The government is also allegedly flouting the protection of journalists’ sources and lawyers’ professional secrecy.

Promises made when the federal law was revised

When the federal law was revised in 2016, parliamentarian Guy Parmelin, who was in charge of security at the time, promised total respect for the private sphere of the Swiss people. “This will make it possible to penetrate certain computers, even in a private context, provided that all the conditions are met”, he explained at the time.

The aim of this law, which was approved by 65% of the population, was to use new communications technologies to combat terrorism. In particular, it makes it possible to connect to the cables and fibres of the various operators, and thus to decrypt exchanges made on the Internet.

On the French-speaking Swiss public television, RTS, Gerhard Andrey, a Green Party parliamentarian from canton Fribourg, pointed out that this scenario had been raised in 2016. Today, he reiterated his concerns and scepticism about the collection of this data by the SRC, which in his view is disproportionate and incompatible with the principles of the rule of law in a democracy such as Switzerland. “The intervention is too massive and there is too little to gain,” he says.

+Sharp rise in official surveillance of Swiss telecommunications

The intelligence service denies these claims

When contacted by RTS, the SRC denies all the allegations made in the Republik article: “The Federal Intelligence Service is in no way engaged in generalised surveillance. All of the SRC’s activities are subject to strict control at various levels of government, parliament and the administration.”

Other concerns have also been expressed about the hacking of this data. Steven Meyer, director of ZENData and cybersecurity expert, explains his fears: “Given that other national institutions have already been victims of data hacking, how can we be sure that they will be properly protected so that another government or criminals cannot access them?

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here. 

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].