The Polizia Postale e delle Comunicazioni (Postal and Communications Police) is one of the units of the

Polizia di Stato The ''Polizia di Stato'' (State Police or P.S.) is one of the national police forces of Italy. Alongside the Carabinieri, it is the main police force for providing police duties, primarily to cities and large towns, and with its child agencies ...

, the State Police of

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. Its functions include the investigation of

cybercrime A cybercrime is a crime that involves a computer or a computer network.Moore, R. (2005) "Cyber crime: Investigating High-Technology Computer Crime," Cleveland, Mississippi: Anderson Publishing. The computer may have been used in committing the ...

History

PolTel has been created in 1981 as a special department of the

in order to ensure safety, prevention and the repression of crimes on the field of the Italian Ministry of mail and telecommunications. Initially, it oversaw postal offices and protected armoured trucks during operations of valuables transport. The personnel was active in vigilance services for money and valuables transport operated by

Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane S.p.A. ( "Italian Railways of the State"; previously only Ferrovie dello Stato, hence the abbreviation FS) is Italy's national state-owned railway holding company that manages transport, infrastructure, real estate ...

, along with the railroad police (Polfer). After a privatization process in Italy and the foundation of Poste Italiane S.p.A. in 1998, the police service has been renamed in "Polizia Postale e delle Comunicazioni". Following the reform of the public security administration, the Postal and Communications Police has become a cutting-edge "special division" of the State Police against cybercrimes, respecting the

constitutional A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princip ...

values of privacy and freedom.

Organization

The interministerial decree issued on 19 January 1999 describes the postal police as the "central body of the Ministry of the Interior for its security and the telecommunications services regularity": * The postal and communications police service, with its headquarters in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, co-ordinates 20 divisions located in every regional capital city (e.g.,

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

, etc.), except for the Aosta Valley which belongs to

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

's department. Sicily is divided in two departments with their headquarters located in

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...

(''Sicilia Occidentale'') and

Catania Catania (, , Sicilian and ) is the second largest municipality in Sicily, after Palermo. Despite its reputation as the second city of the island, Catania is the largest Sicilian conurbation, among the largest in Italy, as evidenced also by ...

(''Sicilia Orientale'') *The departments have regional competence and generally they are directed by a First executive of the State Police. Departments coordinate in turn the sections inside their territory * There are 76 sections of PolTel and each of them has provincial competence, under the direction of Inspectors.

Tasks

PolTel represents the branch of the Italian Police specialized in prevention, control and repression of all the penal and administrative crimes belonging to the communication field, criminal activities on the internet and cybercrime in general. According to the law, it has an exclusive on struggling against online child pornography. PolTel operates closely with the

Autorità per le garanzie nelle comunicazioni Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni (AGCOM) ( en, Authority for Communications Guarantees) is the regulator and competition authority for the communication industries in Italy. Administrative leadership The 4 members of Agcom board are e ...

(AGCOM) and the regional communication inspectorates of the Ministry of Economic Development. PolTel has signed agreements with agencies and companies as Poste Italiane,

Associazione Bancaria Italiana Associazione Bancaria Italiana is the trade association of Italian banks. The association was founded in 1919, few years after the Association of Italian Saving Banks (ACRI, founded 1912), the Association of Italian Rural Credit Unions (''Cassa R ...

, GSE S.p.A. (Gestore dei servizi energetici), Ferrovie dello Stato, hospitals, etc. PolTel performs judicial investigation for all the cybercrimes added by time into the Italian penal code, and for all crimes committed through more recent IT. Judicial police activity is not exclusively a web-intelligence one (monitoring

chat line Chat line is a services allowing for people to communicate with one another by telephone call. However, more recent chat lines are similar to CB radio in which a number of people both listen and speak together. See also * Instant messaging * Onli ...

newsgroup A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically distinct ...

social network A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...

, etc), but it is also competent in: hacking (intrusions, computer damages), telephony (fixed and mobile, VoIP),

privacy Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...

, eventually author's rights and

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...

(videos, music, pay-tv),

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...

, surveillance over radio and TV frequencies, frauds related to home banking, political subversion, terrorism, illegal trades of drugs, weapons and explosives, or every traditional crime that have a computer as a target or medium.

High competence on cybercrimes

Ministry of Interior's decree issued on 28 April 2006 says that: Competences of every Police force, including PolTel, has been revised by the ''Minniti Decree'' of 15 August 2017, which defines: PolTel is also engaging in investigations to prevent and counteract copyright violations which can be performed online, cooperating with other Italian Police forces and in particular with Guardia di Finanza according to the art. 2, paragraph 2, letter l of the legislative decree n. 68 of 2001. The special

Police The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and t ...

department guarantees also the general integrity and functionality of the computer network, including the protection of critical infrastructures managed with IT systems and of all national strategic assets. PolTel controls the security and regularity of the telecommunication services and contrasts online child pornography, according to the art. 7-bis of the decree-law n. 144 of 27 July 2005 converted with modifications by law n. 155 of 31 July 2005, where are described the tasks of the ''Centro nazionale anticrimine informatico per la protezione delle infrastrutture critiche'' (CNAIPIC), and according to art. 19 of law n. 38 of 6 February 2006, n. 38.

References

External links

Official website
{{Law enforcement in Italy Polizia di Stato Postal police Postal system of Italy