FRA published today the summary of his second report on surveillance by the intelligence services in Greek

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) published its second report on the protection of fundamental rights in the context of surveillance by national intelligence services in October 2017. The title of the report in Greek is «Παρακολούθηση από τις υπηρεσίες πληροφοριών: εγγυήσεις και μέσα έννομης προστασίας των θεμελιωδών δικαιωμάτων στην Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση – Τόμος ΙΙ».

For those who are not familiar with its work, FRA was established with the objective of offering independent and well-documented assistance and experts’ advice regarding fundamental rights in the institutions of the EU Member States. It is an independent EU institution, funded by the EU budget.

Considering the growing threats of terrorism, the cyber-attacks and the sophisticated transboundary criminal networks, the scope of the intelligence services has become more emergent, complex and international and the services may interfere gravely with fundamental rights.

The report of October 2017 is the second report published by FRA, subsequently to the request by the European Parliament for a thorough examination of the consequences of surveillance on fundamental rights. It is a continuation of the first report by FRA, published in 2015. This first report examined the legal frameworks on surveillance in the 28 EU Member States and analyzed them through the perspective of fundamental rights. In this way, the first report by FRA presented a comparative analysis of the legal framework on surveillance in the whole of the EU. The Greek summary of the first report is available here.

The second report is an updated version of the 2015 legal analysis, which also includes long interviews with various experts of certain EU Member States. It also includes 16 FRA opinions, which are based on the main findings of the report.Today, the Greek version of the summary of the second report was published on FRA’s website and is available here. It is worth noting that the Greek version of the summary is one of the first available translations in official EU languages.