During a press conference on September 9, the Minister of Digital Affairs, Krzysztof Gawkowski, together with the head of the Ministry of Administration and coordinator of special services, Tomasz Siemoniak, announced the establishment of an inter-ministerial team. It will deal with the development of new regulations that will determine the scope of access of services to telecommunications data.
Tomasz Siemoniak wants more powers for the services
According to reports “Dziennik Gazeta Prawna“, the Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration wants to give the services the ability to control telecommunications traffic that passes through Poland in transit. These powers, which would come into effect through an amendment to the electronic communications law, would be granted to the Intelligence Agency and the Military Intelligence Service.
Interestingly, Siemoniak is also considering adding provisions to the act on the provision of electronic services that would require telecommunications companies to retain data and make it available to services when they need it. This process would involve routinely collecting information about subscribers and when, from what location and with what number they connected by phone, as well as providing their IP addresses.
The last of the postulates of the coordinator of special services is to allow officers to control the exchange of messages using encrypted instant messengers and e-mail. The services could then find out from information providers who uses the given instant messengers, but they would not have access to the content of the correspondence.
The new regulations are to be related to the August cyberattack on the Polish Anti-Doping Agency
Let us recall that at the beginning of August, the Polish Anti-Doping Agency fell victim to a hacker attack. “The findings indicate that the attack is the work of a group supported by the services of a hostile state” – she wrote then on social media POLADA.
The cyberattack took place shortly before the start of the Olympic Games in Paris and affected the database containing the data of Polish athletes.