Filenews 22 October 2025 - by Michalis Chatzivasilis
The bill that allows the surveillance of telephone conversations for the purpose of combating organized crime and ensuring national security and public order is in the Legal Service for legal technical control.
The "weapon" of phone surveillance is estimated to contribute to the prevention of crimes, but mainly to the investigation, as is now the case with the murder of Stavros Demosthenous. The Ministry of Justice and Public Order has completed the changes to the law that was passed in 2020, but was never implemented, and has sent the final bill to the Legal Service. It is expected that as soon as these are legally examined, it will be forwarded to the Parliament for a vote, so that the legislation that now abolishes the confidentiality of private communication can be implemented, always under terms and conditions.
As is well known, the legislation that allows for the first time in Cyprus the interception of telephone conversations by recording them at the request of the Police or the KYP, although it was passed five years ago after many discussions and concerns, was never implemented. Technical and other problems, as well as legal gaps that were identified before its implementation, which may have lost criminal cases, suspended the implementation of the law. The long delay in the implementation of the legislation is due to the fact that the mobile and fixed telephony providers (Cyta, Cablenet, Epic and Primetel) did not have the necessary technical equipment to solve the technical problems that arose, so that the Police and the KYP could access their systems and set up a ear for monitoring telephone conversations. When these problems were finally resolved, last November, reservations were expressed as to the procedure for issuing the relevant telephone interception decrees. And in order to completely exclude any possibility of these decrees being annulled ex post facto before the Justice, a development that would lead to the collapse of the criminal cases that would be investigated due to the interception of telephone conversations, it was deemed appropriate to shield the legislation even more before its implementation. Thus, it was decided to prepare an amending bill in which changes that will not be open to doubt before the courts will be incorporated and forwarded to the Parliament.
According to the legislation passed by the Parliament in 2020, each provider maintains appropriate infrastructure and/or software for interconnection and immediately provides the necessary facilities to the Chief of Police and/or the Commander of the KYP in the context of the execution of their duties and powers deriving from the issuance of a court warrant in accordance with Article 8. In addition, each provider and its employees shall take all appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure the confidentiality of private communication, in the context of the performance of their duties deriving from the provisions of paragraph (1) and the confidentiality of any information that comes to their knowledge as a result of the exercise of their duties. There have been discussions with mobile operators on a number of key issues, such as the storage locations of data resulting from phone call recordings, storage time and other technical issues, so that the legislation cannot be implemented.
Now, the solution has been found and the bill is expected to be reviewed so that it can be sent to Parliament and the way for surveillance to be agreed. The interception of telephone conversations will take place if a court warrant is issued against a person considered suspected of investigating the following criminal offenses: Premeditated murder, homicide, corruption, terrorism, espionage, trafficking in human beings and drugs, child pornography and money laundering.
