The Bundestag has passed a law that gives the BND and the domestic intelligence agency (BfV) significantly expanded powers for cyber operations. These include hacking foreign systems, sabotaging supply chains and taking down servers. It is the biggest overhaul of intelligence law since the postwar era. The services will also be allowed to analyse large volumes of data using AI and to match images biometrically; the private communications of German citizens are to remain protected by safeguards.

Chancellery Minister Nina Warken said the powers could make it possible to use cyber operations to sabotage, for example, drone factories or chemical weapons laboratories. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt called the bill the "reform of the century" in the debate. AfD MP Christian Wirth criticised a provision restricting the exchange of information with state offices as a "Lex AfD".

The BND is in future to be able to act against threats abroad rather than merely report on them. Within Germany, the BfV receives a shorter list of covert powers, such as blocking or rerouting data traffic. Hacking operations and active measures within Germany must be approved in advance by the Independent Oversight Council.

Key points:

• The Bundestag has passed a law that allows Germany's intelligence services to hack foreign systems, sabotage adversaries' supply chains and take down the servers of hostile state-backed hackers.
• The Bundestag approved the bill by 308 votes to 190, with 71 abstentions.
• The cabinet of Chancellor Friedrich Merz had approved the draft months earlier.

Source: The Record (Recorded Future) (English)