Virtual Swiss agents cleared to infiltrate chatrooms

Swiss virtual agents will track terror suspects online Keystone / Str

Swiss secret service agents have been given permission to track suspected terrorist in chatrooms under cover of assumed identities.

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Such operations are generally legal, according to the summary of an audit report published by the AB-ND, the independent supervisory authority for intelligence activities.

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Terror suspects are increasingly communicating in closed groups and via encrypted messaging services. Virtual agents disguise themselves with false identities and stories, attempting to gain the trust of key individuals. The goal: to gain access to sensitive information.

Without virtual agents, there is a risk that indications of threats will not be recognised in a timely manner, according to AB-ND. The same requirements apply to virtual agents as to covert operations in the real world. Specifically, agents are allowed to conceal their identities, for example, with false IDs and captions.

According to the supervisory authority, what is permitted in real life also applies in the virtual space. Critics of the intelligence service see it differently.

Legal dispute

But lawyer and board member of the Digital Society association, Viktor Györffy, disagrees with the AB-ND. “The existing legal basis is insufficient. The use of virtual agents would have to be explicitly and specifically regulated,” he told Swiss public broadcaster SRF.

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Online use is not the same as real-life use: “In virtual space, deception is easier because you don’t have a real counterpart. There are also more possibilities, such as artificially imitating other people’s voices,” Györffy said. Furthermore, virtual agents can be much more active with little effort than in real life.

For the AB-ND, however, the legal basis is sufficient. The intelligence agency has set the bar “high” for the use of virtual agents, writes the supervisory authority: Reliable, self-obtained information must be available for a covert operation to be approved.

However, the AB-ND also criticises the lack of rules and guidelines for the operations themselves. It is “not conclusively clarified” what is permitted and what is not.

Rules of engagement

Their report suggests that the Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) has already deployed virtual agents. However, there is no confirmation of this and FIS did not respond to such questions. It states that it only comments on its operational activities and procedures to the departmental management, the Federal Council, and the supervisory bodies.

The audit report clearly shows that the AB-ND is dissatisfied with the pace of the process. Questions regarding the rules of engagement have been discussed for years, in some cases.

The structure of the responsible unit was “inefficient and inappropriate.” Responsibility has changed several times, and each time, fundamental questions have been discussed from the beginning.

FIS has been undergoing a fundamental reorganisation for over two years. In the process, expertise and trust in the leadership have been lost – and, evidently, time as well.

Translated from German by DeepL/mga

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