Surveillance

Albanian Police building. Photo: EPA-EFE/MALTON DIBRA

Unidentified gunmen early on Monday shot dead a 60-year-old security guard at the premises of national television station Top Channel, Albanian police announced. The event happened under unclear circumstances, they said.

The body of a 31-year-old man was found under the bridge of Racho the monument of Racho the Blacksmith in Gabrovo.

The police were alerted at around 8 o'clock this morning by people passing by. An on-site inspection was carried out, video surveillance cameras in the area are also being reviewed.

Albanian police have recently dismantled some 451 illegally erected CCTV cameras, which experts see as a worrying sign of the power of organised crime structures.

The spread of illegal surveillance cameras placed in cities all over Albania is causing concern about the vulnerability of personal data and about the strength of the criminal groups that allegedly put them up.

Experts warn of a concerning situation for personal data that might have been gathered, and about the criminal groups' strength.

Albanian police on Friday said they had found 47 new surveillance cameras erected illegally in the Durres region.

They said the cameras had been put up "to provide information for criminal purposes, as well as to monitor the movements of the police". Eight people are under investigation.

A draft law on electronic communications, awaiting approval in the parliament, will give police and other special services access to any content sent or received by email or other online communication tools such as Whatsup, Messenger or other similar apps.

Police have launched an investigation after unknown individuals smashed up the main entrance and windows of an Athens courthouse.

Four people were involved in the attack on the First Instance Administrative Court in Ampelokipi.

Police said they arrived at the building shortly after 11 p.m. and, using sledgehammers, broke doors and windows before fleeing.

Sixteen prominent constitutional law professors have strongly criticised Greece's chief prosecutor Isidoros Dogiakos after he issued a controversial legal opinion arguing that the independent authority responsible for privacy, ADAE, cannot conduct audits of telecommunication companies to find out who is under surveillance by the country's intelligence agency.

Slovenia's Constitutional Court has put a final stop to the use of IMSI catchers by the law enforcement authorities after imposing a temporary injunction in 2019 on the use of these devices, which mimic mobile phone towers to intercept mobile traffic.

By Vasilis Labropoulos

In the last 15 years, there have been at least 20 cases of suspicious actions or mistakes within the National Intelligence Service (EYP) that have had an impact on Greek politics and raise questions about EYP's modus operandi and objectives.