A 23 percent increase in state-sanctioned wiretaps, often citing vague “national security” reasons without detailed justification, was recorded in Greece in 2024 and early 2025. This is according to the new report from the Hellenic Data Protection Authority (ADAE), as presented by TA NEA newspaper.
The report highlights a renewed surge in government eavesdropping, occurring roughly three years after the wiretapping scandal that revealed a vast network of “invisible” surveillance, primarily by the National Intelligence Service (EYP), often operating in parallel to the illegal Predator spyware.
As TA NEA reports, this sharp increase is particularly notable because the preceding period in 2023—following the uproar over the Predator scandal and simultaneous EYP surveillance—had seen a temporary 36 percent reduction in “invisible” wiretaps. The current rise is concentrated in intercepts carried out under simple prosecutorial orders, bypassing more rigorous judicial procedures that require a detailed analysis of the reason for tapping a phone.
The ADAE’s report calls for legislative changes to grant the authority more complex and comprehensive oversight of the EYP. Specifically, the Authority is demanding the power to:
- Conduct routine and extraordinary inspections—either on its own initiative or following a complaint—of the facilities, technical equipment, archives, data banks, communication data, and documents belonging to the EYP, other public services, and even private companies involved in communication services.
- Seize evidence related to the violation of communication privacy and act as the custodian of these items until competent courts rule on them.
- Order the destruction of information or data acquired through illegal communication privacy violations, following a judicial decision and provided a criminal procedure is pending.
The breakdown of interceptions
Overall, the total number of legal interceptions in Greece (with or without specific justification) reached 11,312 in the past year, up from 10,034 the year before—a 12 percent overall increase in state wiretapping activity.
However, the most significant rise was in the category of intercepts made for the vaguely defined “reasons of national security.” For context, in 2021, the relevant “national security” wiretaps stood at 15,475, indicating a high baseline before the scandal caused a temporary dip.
Authorities’ justification for the increase in wiretaps in Greece
According to TA NEA, security officials attributed the increase in “unjustified” state intercepts to efforts over the past two years to address the perceived resurgence of “domestic urban guerrilla warfare” and suspicious actions by Islamists. They cited a large network of surveillance, including taps inside prisons, due to suspects using untraceable phones to direct accomplices outside.
However, critics note that similar domestic threats existed in previous years, suggesting this reasoning does not fully explain the dramatic recent escalation, especially when counter-terrorism and EYP taps dominate the increase while organized crime taps decline.
It is evident that the upward trend in wiretaps over recent years was only temporarily halted by the revelation of illegal surveillance by the EYP and the parallel use of the Predator spyware; the numbers are now again on the rise, the newspaper notes.
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