Surveillance decreases for consecutive year

Photo: Glowimages

Last year, prosecutors and courts approved 239 of 5595 police applications for a permit to launch surveillance operations.

In 2011 there had been over 7300 such applications, and the year before that more than 8300.

“This type of activity is used when other measures are unsuccessful and unhelpful,” Deputy Interior Minister Marcin Jablonski noted during a session of the Parliamentary Committee for Internal Affairs, as cited by the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

Jablonski argued that the statistics show that more mundane procedures are in fact “more successful and more useful,” and that undercover surveillance is only used in “exceptional” circumstances.

Nine branches of Poland's secret services are entitled to carry out surveillance operations. These include wire-taps, the inspection of letters, and the clandestine filming of suspects.

Legal permission can be obtained to launch such operations if the matters concern the most serious crimes, or when all other measures have failed. (nh)