Allied Intelligence — 2026-05-05

Germany Drafts Major BND Reform to Grant Offensive Cyber and Investigatory Powers

Germany's Chancellery has circulated a draft BND Act reform authorizing offensive cyber operations and permitting agents to enter homes to install spyware. The draft, reported by heise online and Risky Business Media in January, would also allow the BND to hack foreign IT providers including Google, Meta, and X when they decline data requests. Both outlets reported a six-month window for bulk storage of up to 30 percent of intercepted traffic including full message content; Interface EU's February webinar cited a 15-year retention figure. Per Interface EU, the reform includes a €350 million budget increase to €1.51 billion and would abolish the G10 Commission while removing the Federal Data Protection Commissioner's mandate over intelligence agencies.

Analysis
Stripping the G10 Commission, the parliamentary check on BND collection since 1968, is the structural pivot of Germany's Chancellery draft, concentrating oversight authority in ways that invite Bundesverfassungsgericht challenge. The package has expanded materially from earlier reporting, now adding physical home entry for spyware installation, coercive access to Google, Meta, and X, and removal of the Federal Data Protection Commissioner's intelligence mandate. A retention-period conflict, six months per heise online's primary reporting versus 15 years in Interface EU's February webinar, signals the draft is still in flux. Passage before the September 2026 Bundestag recess is unlikely; the Chancellery may instead have floated a maximalist draft to anchor negotiations toward the offensive-cyber core it actually seeks.

1 sources

How Germany is Revamping its Foreign and Security Intelligence - Interface EU