Germany's Bundestag passed a sweeping reform on Friday granting intelligence services expanded powers to conduct cyberattacks, enter apartments and recruit minors.
The lower house approved the measure by 309 votes to 190, with 71 abstentions. The law gives the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and the domestic Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) authority to conduct "hackbacks" against cyberattackers. It also allows the BfV to secretly enter apartments to install spyware and, in narrow cases, to recruit 16- and 17-year-olds as informants.
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt called the reform necessary against "the enemies of democracy." BND President Martin Jäger said in October that "Russia is waging a shadow war against us" and that "Moscow bets on our weakness." The government cited threats including sabotage on railway lines, cyberattacks on hospitals, an explosive drone at Leipzig airport and espionage in agencies. A Constitutional Court ruling had set a deadline of the end of this year for the BND to revise its telecommunications surveillance rules.
Under the new law, the BND may disable servers of cyberattackers, sabotage foreign facilities such as drone factories or chemical weapons labs, and store intercepted communications content for several months. The BfV may redirect data traffic during cyberattacks, delete or falsify stored data, feed false information to suspects, and use AI-supported analysis and biometric image matching online. Its hackback operations remain subject to the priority of police authorities.
Linke security politician Clara Bünger called the law "a monster that can summon ghosts we probably won't get rid of." AfD parliamentary leader Alice Weidel said it was "an attack on the German rule of law." Greens security politician Konstantin von Notz said the boundary with police jurisdiction remained unclear and that transparency and legal protection for those affected were insufficient.
An Independent Control Council composed mainly of former judges will review the legality of certain measures beforehand, including secret entries into apartments. The reform follows hoax bomb threat emails that forced the evacuation of thousands of schools in Italy, the United Kingdom and Ireland on Wednesday.
