The Military Counterintelligence Service
The right of information at the Military Counterintelligence Service.
The Military Counterintelligence Service (BAMAD, often abbreviated MAD) is a national intelligence service of the federal government and performs functions of an authority ensuring the protection of the Constitution within the remit of the Federal Ministry of Defence (BMVg). Its tasks and powers are governed by the Military Counterintelligence Service Act (MADG) in conjunction with the Federal Act on the Protection of the Constitution (BVerfSchG) and the Security Clearance Check Act (SÜG).
Pursuant to Section 9 MADG in conjunction with Sect. 15 BVerfSchG (Links to law in German), you are entitled to receive gratuitously information about the data relating to your person that are stored at the BAMAD. In your request to the BAMAD, you must refer to a specific fact concerning which the data about which you are requesting information should have been collected. This may be the case, for example, if you are dealing with the Federal Ministry of Defence or its remit on an official or professional basis. Only then the BAMAD is principally the competent entity.
In addition, it is necessary that you demonstrate a particular interest. This interest exists, for example, if there is evidence that data relating to your person have been processed unlawfully or are incorrect.
In order to verify your person and to avoid misuse of your data by unauthorised persons, your request for information to the BAMAD must be accompanied by a hand-signed copy of your identity card (the front and the back of the card; linked articel in German) or of your passport. In this context, the hand-signed copy of the ID must contain only the name, address, date of birth and the period of validity of the ID card. The remaining information may be blackened. You should send your request to:
Bundesamt für den Militärischen Abschirmdienst
Brühler Str. 300, 50968 Köln (“Cologne”)
To the contact details of the BAMAD.
Under certain conditions, the BAMAD can refuse to comply with your right of information if, for example, there is the risk that providing information to you could jeopardise the BAMAD’s performance of tasks or that its state of knowledge could be investigated. This also applies to the threat to public security or sources as well as to the need for confidentiality of queried data.
You can file an objection against the refusal of information. In addition, the BAMAD must inform you that you can contact in parallel the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI). If this happens, the BAMAD must provide the BfDI with the information previously refused to you, unless the Federal Ministry of Defence determines in individual cases that the information to the BfDI jeopardises the security of the federal government or a federal state (so-called clause on the security interest of the State). Within the scope of its review and control powers, the BfDI checks the lawfulness of the processing of the data and provides you with information about the outcome. However, the information which the BfDI provides to you are limited in so far as they must not allow any conclusions about the BAMAD’s state of knowledge.
Please also note that the appeal to the BfDI does not suspend the time limit for lodging an objection or action, i.e. if you consider filing an objection or action, you should do so within the respective time limit, if necessary in parallel with the appeal to the BfDI.
You can also contact the BfDI directly if you believe that the processing of your personal data by the BAMAD infringes your rights. In this case, too, the information listed above must be provided so that the BfDI can process your request quickly. You should send your request to:
Der Bundesbeauftragte für den Datenschutz und die Informationsfreiheit
(Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information)
Graurheindorferstr. 153, 53117 Bonn
Telephone: + 49 (0)228-997799-0
E-mail: poststelle@bfdi.bund.de
De-mail: poststelle@bfdi.de-mail.de
Important to know: The obligation to provide information according to Sect. 9 MADG in conjunction with Sect. 15 BVerfSchG expressly does not cover the origin of the data or the recipients of data transfers. Therefore, the Military Counterintelligence Service does not have to disclose where a personal data item comes from or to whom it was transmitted!