Surveillance by intelligence services – Volume II: field perspectives and legal update
‘check’ the issues identified by the respondents with
regard to their specific national contexts.
The methodology applied to the social research aims
to identify prevailing understandings of and opinions
about the legal framework that currently regulates
oversight of intelligence gathering – a task that is shared
by different actors in the field, such as different types
of oversight bodies, data protection authorities, ombuds
institutions, national human rights institutions, civil
society organisations, practicing lawyers, academics
and media representatives. The data collected provide
insights into, and broader understanding of, the
challenges of upholding fundamental rights in the area
of oversight. It also provides an assessment of applied
oversight practices and remedies from the perspective
of different actors involved.
The main data collection was carried out from December
2015 to July 2016, with a few interviews conducted in
the late autumn of 2016. The final data set consists
of 72 interviews in the selected EU Member States
(see Table 1).
Interviews by Member State
Member State
Number of
interviews
Belgium
8
Germany
8
France
17
Italy
5
The Netherlands
8
Sweden
14
The United Kingdom
12
Total
72
Source:
FRA, 2017
Table 2 presents a breakdown of the interviews by
the institutions and bodies. The interviews with the
representatives of the oversight bodies comprise
the biggest share in the dataset (nearly half of the
interviews). Both the type of institution approached and
number of the interviews per Member State depended
on the national context.
In the context of this research, the interviewees were
addressed as individuals with special knowledge on
intelligence, surveillance, oversight and related matters.
The focus was on collecting the experts’ process-related
knowledge on gathering intelligence in accordance with
existing fundamental rights standards.
154
Interviews, by institution represented
Institution/organisation
Expert body
Number of
interviews
16
Parliamentary committee
8
Executive control
4
Judiciary
6
Data protection authority
11
Ombuds institution, national
human rights institution
Civil society organisation
(including media representatives)
Academia
Lawyer
Source:
5
12
5
5
Total
Data collection
Table 1:
Table 2:
72
FRA, 2017
All potential interviewees were contacted with official
FRA letters, as representatives of a specific public
authority, body or organisation. In the communication,
strict anonymity and confidentiality of the interviews
were agreed on. Where quotes or statements from the
interviews are used in publications, FRA committed to
using no reference or using a generalised reference to
avoid enabling personal identification.
FRA expressed its interest in interviewing separately
the head of the institution and the staff (or member of
the body) with relevant responsibilities that cover the
areas of the research interest. In the final outcome, the
respondents are distributed equally by their positions in
the institutions, i.e., the final sample includes interviews
with the heads (chairs, directors, presidents) of the
authorities and the responsible staff in equal shares
(22 interviews per each category). This breakdown
was not applied for lawyers, academia and civil society
organisations, where the same person might represent
both positions. During most interviews, two respondents
participated (in a few cases, more than two respondents
were present, and the highest number of interviewees
per interview was six). With regard to gender, in more
than half of the interviews (44 out of 72), only men
were present. In 15 cases, only women were present as
interviewees. In the remaining 13 cases, both men and
women were present during the interviews.
In the framework of the research, civil society
organisations that have expertise in the area of
data protection and surveillance specifically were
approached. Such organisations were available in all the
researched Member States except for Italy. In selecting
the organisations, their experience on the international
level was taken into account. The scale and scope of the
activities vary among the civil society organisations and