Blanket Surveillance Act

February 7, 2016 was the effective date for the Act of January 15, 2016 on Amendments to the Police Act and Certain Other Acts (Journal of Laws of 2016, item 147), generally known as the "Blanket Surveillance Act". It introduced essential amendments to the operation of the uniformed services1, including operational surveillance procedures, and the services' ability to collate data from telecom, postal and e-service operators.

As you are very likely to use the services of any of the above companies, or may actually be classified as one of them, please take some time to read the most important amendments.

Most important amendments

The uniformed services will now be able to obtain data2 which is not part of a postal message or telecom transmission and data other than the content of an e-service, and their use of this operating technique will only be checked post facto by regional courts. Telecom companies, postal operators and e-service providers will be required to provide the data referred above free of charge, including by means of a fixed connection. New rules for handing over data containing or likely to contain client-attorney privileged content, with the proviso that...