Electronic Surveillance in Romania: Law, Policy, and Practice
November 14, 2023
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Executive Summary
- Romania’s intelligence community, laws, and oversight institutions reflect its recent history, especially its transition from its Communist past.
- After the fall of the Communist regime in 1989, the feared Securitate secret police was divided into separate agencies for foreign intelligence, domestic intelligence, military intelligence, and law enforcement.
- Since then, Romanian intelligence agencies have undergone multiple rounds of democratization and modernization. Despite efforts to improve transparency and oversight, however, intelligence remains largely beyond public scrutiny.
- Agencies that conduct national-security surveillance. Today, Romania’s surveillance authorities are divided between three major intelligence agencies and several other services with security-related powers:
- The Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI), which is the principal domestic intelligence service.
- The Foreign Intelligence Service (SIE).
- The Protection and Guard Service (SPP), which protects dignitaries.
- Other specialized agencies within the ministries of defense, interior, and justice.
- Process and standards for approving surveillance. Requests for electronic surveillance require judicial pre-authorization.
- First, the agency submits a request to a prosecutor attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice. The request must demonstrate that a threat to national security exists and that no less-intrusive method would suffice.
- The prosecutor can decide either to reject the request or to forward it to the President of the High Court.
- A judge appointed by the President of the High Court then decides whether to approve the request, request further information, or reject it.
- If the request is approved, the judge issues a National Security Interception Mandate, which describes the legal basis for the interception.
- Romanian law lists an array of permissible purposes for national-security surveillance. These range from familiar categories like terrorism and treason to “acts of destruction, degradation, or bringing in an unusable state the structures necessary to the good development of social and economic life.”
- Publicly available data suggests that nearly all requests are approved: of 26,000 requests filed between 2009 and 2018, only two were rejected.
- This process is the same for domestic and overseas targets of surveillance; however, the law provides certain additional protections to Romanian citizens.
- Implementing surveillance. Approved requests are implemented by the National Center for Communication Interception (CNIC), which is part of SRI, the principal domestic intelligence service.
- Telecom providers automatically transfer the requisite data to the system administered by CNIC, without the intervention of a human operator.
- Officials from the Foreign Intelligence Service (SIE) have said publicly that it does not possess its own technical capabilities to effectuate electronic surveillance. Instead, it relies on the platform provided by CNIC.
- The General Directorate for Defence Intelligence (DGIA) is an exception: it is allowed to conduct its own electronic surveillance operations to protect Romania’s military and maintains its own technical capabilities for that purpose.
- Since 2022, Romanian law requires providers of IP-based services to assist with the execution of electronic surveillance.
- This includes providing agencies with access to the companies’ own IT systems, for the purpose of extracting information covered by the judicial authorization.
- The law does not specify whether bulk surveillance is permitted.
- Romania offers relatively little transparency about its electronic surveillance in the field of national security.
- SRI, the domestic service, publishes annual reports, but they are often published with significant delay and contain only vague data regarding SRI’s surveillance activities.
- The annual reports of the foreign service, SIE, are not made public.
- Oversight of Romania’s intelligence agencies is carried out by the Romanian Parliament through its specialized committees.
- The Romanian Parliament has four such committees.
- Two specialize in overseeing the legality of surveillance measures (one for the domestic service, SRI, one for the foreign service, SIE).
- The other two monitor the services’ financial expenditures.
- Romania does not have a specialized independent agency to oversee intelligence activities.
- Proposed expansion of surveillance powers. In June 2022, the government proposed several changes to the laws governing surveillance for national-security purposes. The proposal would:
- Authorize SRI (the domestic service) to act abroad if the actions are closely linked to a domestic threat to national security, while allowing SIE (the foreign service) to act domestically if the threat is linked to foreign entities.
- Expand the list of authorized “national security” purposes for surveillance. The expansion would allow SRI to conduct surveillance related to organized crime and threats to important economic and scientific interests.
- Allow SRI to submit authorization requests directly to the High Court of Justice and Cassation, skipping the initial assessment by the General Prosecutor’s Office.
- Allow SRI to present its annual reports only to the specialized oversight committees in Parliament, rather than to the full body.
- These draft laws have aroused significant public resistance. It remains unclear whether they will be enacted.
