Switzerland: Analysis of state databases
01 May 1997
In 1989, a parliamentary fact-finding committee of the Swiss Justice and Police Ministry found a great many files in the offices of the federal state prosecutor. Today, the committee would need to log into a computer system. As a consequence of the Fichenskandal (file scandal), the Justice and Police Ministry extended old and established new computer systems to gather information.
ISIS
Efficient, constitutionally correct and extremely well controlled - that is how the state protection information system (ISIS), led by the federal police since 1992, is presented by the Justice and Police Ministry. Incorrect and outdated data would be deleted regularly and according to Minister Koller the federal police is the best controlled administrative unit in the country. The term "controlled" (implying accountability or oversight), however, means the police policing themselves. The people on record do not have a right to examine their files, nor does the parliament and the public is not given any information about the number or content of files. In 1994 information on about 40,000 people was believed to be stored in ISIS. Today, the spokesperson for the state prosecutor will not give the exact number of people concerned nor the number of deleted files. However, "less than 40,000" people are concerned.
Taking into account the rapidity of data gathering and the annual deletion rate, the number of people registered in ISIS must be around 70-80,000. Some 9,000 old files have been returned by the special commissioner for state protection files to the state prosecutor. The Gulf War and the war in former Yugoslavia would have resulted in further registrations. The federal police tried to appease criticism in 1994 saying that most of the people registered were foreigners. This comes as no surprise as the checking of asylum seekers (1,200 in 1994) is one of the tasks of the federal police. In the same year, the police checked a further 1,500 foreigners for the federal office for foreigners affairs. Out of around 20,000 security checks by the military, 544 people were registered in ISIS. How many Swiss citizens have been registered as alleged "violent extremists" because of their political activities is not known. According to the State Protection Bill passed in March, the federal and cantonal police, the federal state prosecutor and the federal office for police affairs have direct access to the ISIS data.
DOSIS
The federal office for police affairs also has its own data systems. During the pilot phase 1994-1996, the cantonal drug departments were directly linked to the drug data bank DOSIS (see Statewatch, vol 6 no 4) - only Zurich has its own, DOSIS incompatible, data system. Out of the 56,000 people registered in DOSIS in 1996, 376 are supposed to have dealt in drugs as well as consumed drugs. Drug consumption alone is according to the regulations not a reason to be registered in DOSIS. The information system is supposed to be a weapon against large scale organised drug trafficking. However, anyone who believes that the other 55,000 people registered are dangerous dealers is mistaken. 20,000 people are "contact" persons. The remaining 35,000 people registered as dealers exceed the estimated 30,000 drug addicts in Switzerland. Statistically, there are 1.2 dealers per "junkie", an absurd figure which leads to the conclusion that the police, as in the case of state protection, lay in a stock of data. This data collection rarely leads to the arrest of big dealers. In 1993, the last year for which statistical data is available, 1,834 people were convicted of drug trafficking, and just 500 of these resulted in a sentence of more than 18 months in prison. Only the last group are regarded by the justice authority as serious offenders.
RIPOL
ISIS and DOSIS are instruments of specific police departments. RIPOL (recherches informatisees de police), is a general search system used by the federal office for police