Surge in State Wiretaps: ‘National Security’ Eavesdropping in Greece Jumps 23%

The existent emergence is concentrated successful intercepts carried retired nether elemental prosecutorial orders, bypassing much rigorous judicial procedures. Credit: r. nial bradshaw/Flickr

A 23% summation successful state-sanctioned wiretaps, often citing vague “national security” reasons without elaborate justification, was recorded successful Greece successful 2024 and aboriginal 2025. This is according to the caller study from the Hellenic Data Protection Authority (ADAE), arsenic presented by TA NEA newspaper.

The study highlights a renewed surge successful authorities eavesdropping, occurring astir 3 years aft the wiretapping scandal that revealed a immense web of “invisible” surveillance, chiefly by the National Intelligence Service (EYP), often operating successful parallel to the amerciable Predator spyware.

As TA NEA reports, this crisp summation is peculiarly notable due to the fact that the preceding play successful 2023—following the uproar implicit the Predator ungraded and simultaneous EYP surveillance—had seen a impermanent 36% simplification successful “invisible” wiretaps. The existent emergence is concentrated successful intercepts carried retired nether elemental prosecutorial orders, bypassing much rigorous judicial procedures that necessitate a elaborate investigation of the crushed for tapping a phone.

The ADAE’s study calls for legislative changes to assistance the authorization much analyzable and broad oversight of the EYP. Specifically, the Authority is demanding the powerfulness to:

• Conduct regular and bonzer inspections—either connected its ain inaugural oregon pursuing a complaint—of the facilities, method equipment, archives, information banks, connection data, and documents belonging to the EYP, different nationalist services, and adjacent backstage companies progressive successful connection services.
• Seize grounds related to the usurpation of connection privateness and enactment arsenic the custodian of these items until competent courts regularisation connected them.
• Order the demolition of accusation oregon information acquired done amerciable connection privateness violations, pursuing a judicial determination and provided a transgression process is pending.

The breakdown of interceptions

Overall, the full fig of ineligible interceptions successful Greece (with oregon without circumstantial justification) reached 11,312 successful the past year, up from 10,034 the twelvemonth before—a 12% wide summation successful authorities wiretapping activity.

However, the astir important emergence was successful the class of intercepts made for the vaguely defined “reasons of nationalist security.”

For context, successful 2021, the applicable “national security” wiretaps stood astatine 15,475, indicating a precocious baseline earlier the ungraded caused a impermanent dip.

Authorities’ justification for the summation successful wiretaps

According to TA NEA, information officials attributed the summation successful “unjustified” authorities intercepts to efforts implicit the past 2 years to code the perceived resurgence of “domestic municipality guerrilla warfare” and suspicious actions by Islamists.

They cited a ample web of surveillance, including taps wrong prisons, owed to suspects utilizing untraceable phones to nonstop accomplices outside.

However, critics enactment that akin home threats existed successful erstwhile years, suggesting this reasoning does not afloat explicate the melodramatic caller escalation, particularly erstwhile counter-terrorism and EYP taps predominate the summation portion organized transgression taps decline.

It is evident that the upward inclination successful wiretaps implicit caller years was lone temporarily halted by the revelation of amerciable surveillance by the EYP and the parallel usage of the Predator spyware; the numbers are present again connected the rise, the paper notes.