Germany set to allow intel agencies to take active defensive measures

The German Cabinet is set to approve expanded powers for the country's intelligence agencies in the face of evidence of low-level hybrid attacks, including the option of actively intervening in clearly defined cases.

The Cabinet is due to approve a draft law at its Wednesday meeting that will, for example, allow the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) to manipulate the IT infrastructure of a foreign power during an ongoing cyberattack or disinformation campaign.

The law also provides for greater oversight and new safeguards, including a limit on monitoring an organization as a suspected extremist group to a maximum of five years. An extension would require Interior Ministry approval.

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party has been monitored by the domestic intelligence service as a suspected extremist organization since February 2021, and in May last year, the party's classification at the federal level was upgraded to "confirmed far-right extremist." This is under review by the courts.

The draft law was published in early July. Reforms address issues such as comparing biometric data with information from the internet and the power to conduct online searches - a covert measure in which access is gained to a device to search the data stored on it.

The reform has been planned for some time, but the threat from spying and sabotage - particularly from Russia - is believed to have increased, while the number of politically motivated crimes is also rising.

The Federal Constitutional Court has ruled that oversight of surveillance must be made more effective, finding a lack of rules for separating out data from purely domestic telecommunications and that protection of the core area of private life for foreign individuals abroad was inadequate.