A parliamentary committee that oversees the security services, wiretaps and access to phone and internet data has approved the 2025 annual report from the National Bureau for Control of Special Surveillance Means. Five MPs voted for it and three abstained. Bureau chairman Plamen Kolev presented the findings to lawmakers.
A check at an interior ministry unit found paper records of surveillance results that should have been destroyed but had instead been filed away in a case. A report had said the information on both optical and paper media had been destroyed, but the check found that only the optical media and the letters that came with them had actually been destroyed.
Over the year, the bureau mainly checked how surveillance information was stored, destroyed and used. It held 46 meetings and made 364 decisions.
It ran 262 checks, 49 of them after complaints from citizens. It drew up 4,318 requests covering people and places, of which judges approved 3,782 and turned down 536.
Surveillance methods were used on 2,442 people. In 68 cases they were used at specific locations to establish the identity of people suspected of planning or carrying out a serious crime.
The interior ministry made 63.08% of the requests to use surveillance, the prosecutor's office 20.02%, and the State Agency for National Security 10.82%.