November vote expected on long-awaited phone-tapping bill

A government bill allowing authorities to conduct phone surveillance is expected to be put to the vote towards the end of November, it emerged on Wednesday.

House legal affairs chairman Giorgos Georgiou said parties will give their final positions on the matter on November 21 and then it will go to plenum.

Georgiou said it appeared that the bill would be approved one way or another.

Allowing the authorities to carry out phone surveillance had been a long-standing demand.

Current legislation allows the authorities to monitor and gather the written electronic communications of persons of interest, including emails, and messages on Viber, Skype, Whatsapp and Facebook.

The bill provides for a request to be put to court asking for an order allowing surveillance. The request will be made by the attorney-general who would have received a written application from the police or the secret service containing a report of the situation, the identity of the person and the duration of the wiretap.

The surveillance will be carried out by authorised members of the police or the secret service.

Georgiou said the bill contained safeguards that would ensure surveillance would only be conducted in a bid to clear or prevent serious crimes or because it is dictated by national security.

The committee also finished discussion of the law that will transpose the EU PNR (passenger name record) directive, which requires air carriers to transfer to member states the passenger name record they have collected in the normal course of their business.

The information passengers must provide includes in addition to full name, address and contact details, all payment details including billing address, passenger’s travel history including booking confirmations, ticket checks, passenger arrival information, ticket number, date of issue, seating number and all baggage information.

The bill will go to plenum in the next 15 days.

 

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