Special Measures for Covert Data Collection: Oversight Handbook

The handbook is primarily aimed at the members of the National Assembly Security Services Control Committee and the Defence and Internal Affairs Committee, as their considerable security sector oversight powers put them in a position to make im­mediate use of the handbook.

Furthermore, the handbook can also be of use to the interested public and organisations whose work intersects with these issues.

The first section of the handbook explains what special covert data collection measures are and what conditions are necessary for their application.

The second section of the handbook is devoted to the various institutions authorised to deploy these measures in Serbia. This section also con­tains information on the different measures applied by various institutions, the legal conditions that must be met for their use and the actors tasked with their approval and oversight.

The third section presents all of the institutions tasked with oversight and approval of these measures and reviews the powers available to them.

The last section of the handbook lists the most important questions members of National Assembly committees for security sector oversight should be asking the security ser­vices and the judiciary in reviewing the use of covert data collection measures.

Re­sponses to these questions should yield information fundamental to the continued systematic oversight of this area.

Complete publication can be downloaded via PDF attached to this page or at this link.

Publication of this handbook was kindly supported by The Royal Norwegian Embassy in Belgrade, in the framework of the project “Who Controls the Wire: Towards the Effective External Oversight of the Use of Special Investigative Measures”. The opinions expressed in the publication are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.