Since 2017, the police can officially monitor Internet phone calls and messenger communications in the event of suspicion of a large number of criminal offenses as well as carry out clandestine online searches . The Federal Office of Justice (BfJ) has now published statistics for the first time for 2019. According to this, the investigators used 368 – times state trojans.

For source telecommunications monitoring, judges ordered interventions in IT systems according to the report on paragraph 95 a Code of Criminal Procedure (StPO) 578 – times on. Of these 368. In around 32 percent of the cases, the use of a state Trojan was successful not or was called off despite the judge’s approval. With 129 arrangements of which 89, Lower Saxony leads the country table of the source TKÜ. In the comparatively poorly populated state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the judges allowed the police 118 – sometimes the source TKÜ. This was carried out there in 94 cases, so even more often than in Lower Saxony.

With 94 Bremen also comes up with a large number of orders. However, the investigators only implemented eleven of them in the Hanseatic city. For Saxony 76 judge permits and 76 implemented measures in this area. Hesse follows with 64 and 52 State Trojan missions carried out.

Paragraph 100 a StPO At the source TKÜ, encrypted ongoing communication, for example from messengers such as WhatsApp, Signal or Threema or online calls via Skype & Co., is tapped directly on the end device before it has been encrypted or after it has been decrypted. The extensive catalog of criminal offenses for this begins with murder and manslaughter, but ranges from tax offenses, computer fraud and receiving stolen goods to everyday crime. There is no individual list of the offenses for which a source TKÜ was deemed permissible.

Overall, judges 2019 ruled nationwide in 5252 telecommunication monitoring procedures according to paragraph 100 a StPO. This is an increase of 2.9 percent compared to the previous year. The number of “classic” monitoring arrangements is 12. 225 but 6.4 percent below the figure of the previous year when it was still 19. 474 Permits were.

8624 Monitoring orders were issued for drug offenses, which was around 40 corresponds to percent of the total permits. The Federal Criminal Police Office had already sounded out in advance that the need for a source TKÜ is likely to be particularly high. In places 2 and 3 follow “Fraud and Computer Fraud” with 3372 and gang theft with 1833 Orders.

Paragraph 100 b StPO Also for the first time the authorities 2019 recorded measures according to paragraph 100 b StPO on clandestine online searches statistically. According to this, judges in 19 proceedings ordered the relevant Monitoring of IT systems including hard drives. The number of initial and extension orders for online searches last year was 32, of which the investigators were actually able to carry out twelve.

Half of the online searches were carried out in Bavaria, where they too were primarily concerned with violations of the Narcotics Act. Overall refer to 12 Orders on drug offenses, 13 on predatory and particularly serious blackmail. In cases it has involved the formation of criminal or terrorist groups; The capital crimes of murder and manslaughter, often cited as a justification for the instrument, did not serve as a starting point. g StPO published. Accordingly, in the previous year nationwide in a total of 19. 562 procedure such data collected. The total number of initial and extension orders was 23. 231. Most requests are directed against data that telecommunications providers had on file for up to a week. A direct comparison with the data of the previous year is not possible due to incomplete information for 2018. At that time, eleven federal states had a total of 20. 143 Procedure reported.

(anw)