The National Defence Radio Establishment ( sv, Försvarets radioanstalt, FRA) is a Swedish government agency organised under the

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in state ...

. The two main tasks of FRA are signals intelligence (SIGINT), and support to government authorities and state-owned companies regarding

computer security Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, t ...

. The FRA is not allowed to initialize any surveillance on their own, and operates purely on assignment from the

Government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government i ...

, the Government Offices, the Armed Forces, the Swedish National Police Board and Swedish Security Service (SÄPO). Decisions and oversight regarding information interception is provided by the Defence Intelligence Court and the Defence Intelligence Commission; additional oversight regarding protection of privacy is provided by the Swedish Data Protection Authority.

History

Signals Intelligence has existed in Sweden since 1905 when Swedish

General Staff A military staff or general staff (also referred to as army staff, navy staff, or air staff within the individual services) is a group of officers, enlisted and civilian staff who serve the commander of a division or other large military ...

and Naval Staff respectively, had departments for signals intelligence and

cryptanalysis Cryptanalysis (from the Greek ''kryptós'', "hidden", and ''analýein'', "to analyze") refers to the process of analyzing information systems in order to understand hidden aspects of the systems. Cryptanalysis is used to breach cryptographic s ...

. These departments succeeded, for instance, to decode the Russian Baltic Sea Fleet cipher. After

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, this ability mostly ceased as politicians did not see its value and did not grant funding. The

Swedish Navy The Swedish Navy ( sv, Svenska marinen) is the naval branch of the Swedish Armed Forces. It is composed of surface and submarine naval units – the Fleet () – as well as marine units, the Amphibious Corps (). In Swedish, vessels ...

still continued in a smaller scale and developed the competence further. One of the first major successes was in 1933 when the cipher of the Russian OGPU (predecessor to KGB) was solved. In 1937, the Swedish Defence Staff was established and the Crypto Department, with its Crypto Detail IV, was responsible for cryptanalysis. In 1940, when Germany occupied Denmark and Norway, the German ''

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the '' Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previo ...

'' requested to use the Swedish

telephone network A telephone network is a telecommunications network that connects telephones, which allows telephone calls between two or more parties, as well as newer features such as fax and internet. The idea was revolutionized in the 1920s, as more and mor ...

for its communication. This was accepted and Crypto Detail IV immediately started to intercept. The traffic was almost always encrypted by the German state-of-the-art cipher machine Geheimfernschreiber. This device was believed to produce indecipherable messages, with its 893,622,318,929,520,960 different crypto key settings. After two weeks of single hand work, the Swedish professor of mathematics Arne Beurling, decoded the cipher of the Geheimfernschreiber with only use of pencil and paper. This achievement was described by David Kahn, in his book ''The Codebreakers'': "Quite possibly the finest feat of cryptanalysis performed during the Second World War was Arne Beurling's solution of the secret of the G-schreiber." During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, some 296,000 German messages were intercepted and in 1942 the Swedish Government took the decision to establish Försvarets Radioanstalt. The first stationary collection site was located in the middle of

Stockholm Stockholm () is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropo ...

, but in 1940 it was moved to a number of villas in the suburban island of Lidingö. More sites were established in Sweden and in 1943, FRA moved its headquarters to Lovön, some 15 km from

. In the 1960s, even the location of the FRA headquarters was still highly secret.

Notable events

Operation Stella Polaris

In the final stage of the Continuation War, 1943–44, when the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

threatened to occupy

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bot ...

, Finnish intelligence requested to transfer about 200 specialists and advanced intelligence equipment to Sweden to establish an exile organisation. A transfer of a small contingent personnel and materials,

Operation Stella Polaris Operation Stella Polaris was the cover name for an operation in which Finnish signals intelligence records, equipment and personnel were transported into Sweden in late September 1944 after the end of combat on the Finnish-Soviet front in the S ...

, was carried out over a couple of nights in September 1944. Stella Polaris gave Sweden access to a wealth of qualified materials and signals intelligence officers, some of which were also employed. For Finland, it resulted in a domestic political affair and due to the Communist Party's strong influence in the government, several of the so-called "Soviet Hostiles" involved received prison sentences.

The Catalina affair

On 13 June 1952, the Swedish Air Force aircraft Tp 79 ''Hugin'' ( DC-3) disappeared during a signal intelligence reconnaissance mission east of the Swedish island of Gotland in the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...

. The Swedish government initially claimed that the flight was only a navigational exercise, but later admitted that the aeroplane had U.S. electronic surveillance equipment and five specialists from FRA on board. Three days later, a Swedish Air Force search-and-rescue plane of the type Tp 47 ( Catalina) was shot down by a Soviet MiG-15 fighter, but the crew was rescued by a nearby West German freighter ship. The Soviet Union denied any involvement in the disappearance of the DC-3, despite the fact that a raft from the aeroplane was found during the search with shrapnel from MiG-15 ammunition. In 1956, the Soviet leader

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...

admitted to Swedish Prime Minister Tage Erlander that the Soviet Union was indeed responsible for shooting down the plane, but this was not made public, not even to the relatives of the crewmen. Russia officially acknowledged the shooting down in 1991. In 2003, the wreck of the shot-down DC-3 was found about 55 km east of Gotland. Several of the crewmen's remains were found in the fuselage and the damage to the plane showed that it really had been shot at by a Soviet MiG-15 fighter.

Organizational structure

FRA's operational activity are organized into four departments: The Signals Intelligence Service ( sv, Signalunderrättelsetjänsten), The Department for Internet Operations ( sv, Avdelningen för cyberverksamhet), The Department for Internal Support Services ( sv, Avdelningen för verksamhetsstöd) and The Department for Technical Development and Other Technical Assistance ( sv, Avdelningen för teknisk utveckling och annat tekniskt stöd). In addition to this there is also a command staff and a number of specialist functions reporting directly to the Director-General.

Leadership

Facilities and equipment

FRA SIGINT tower in Kåseberga, Scania The main headquarters is located on the island of

Lovön Lovön is an island in the Swedish Lake Mälaren in Ekerö Municipality of Stockholm County. It was a municipality of its own until 1952, when it was joined with Ekerö Municipality. Lovön's greatest attraction is Drottningholm Palace and its ...

in Stockholm County. The government allocated a total of SEK 860 million for the FRA in the annual budget for the fiscal year of 2014; an increase in spending with 38 million compared to the previous year, due to "greater technical costs and changes abroad". In 2009, the number of employees was "just below 700", according to the FRA. Interception of signals is done from fixed sites on Swedish territory, from the SIGINT ship , operated by the

and soon to be replaced by another vessel, and from two

Gulfstream IV The Gulfstream IV (or G-IV or GIV) and derivatives are a family of twinjet aircraft, mainly for private or business use. They were designed and built by Gulfstream Aerospace, a General Dynamics company based in Savannah, Georgia, United Stat ...

aircraft operated by the

Swedish Air Force The Swedish Air Force ( sv, Svenska flygvapnet or just ) is the air force branch of the Swedish Armed Forces. History The Swedish Air Force was created on 1 July, 1926 when the aircraft units of the Army and Navy were merged. Because of the e ...

Computing

TOP500 The TOP500 project ranks and details the 500 most powerful non- distributed computer systems in the world. The project was started in 1993 and publishes an updated list of the supercomputers twice a year. The first of these updates always coinci ...

credited FRA with owning the world's fifth fastest

supercomputer A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second ( FLOPS) instead of million instructio ...

in their November 2007 list. According to the director-general's chief of staff, the computer is being used for "cryptography and information security." By November 2013, the supercomputer had fallen off the list.

Legal framework

Change in legislation

The FRA has a long history of intercepting radio signals, as the main

intelligence agency An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy objectives. Means of inf ...

producing and managing SIGINT in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

since 1942. However, up until 2009 the FRA was limited to wireless communications intelligence (COMINT), including wireless phone and Internet signals, something that was also left largely unregulated. As an ever-increasing amount of communications have transferred from radio to cables, the question of enabling FRA to collect information from cable communication was addressed by Göran Persson's cabinet in a government appointed committee of inquiry led by General Owe Wiktorin in 2003, resulting in a report suggesting a change in legislation
SOU 2003:30
. In July 2005, the

Minister for Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...

Leni Björklund published a memorandum
Ds 2005:30
with proposed legislation changes, later passed on to the

Cabinet of Fredrik Reinfeldt The cabinet of Fredrik Reinfeldt ( sv, Regeringen Reinfeldt) was the cabinet of Sweden from 2006 to 2014. It was a coalition cabinet consisting of the four parties in the centre-right Alliance for Sweden: the Moderate Party, Centre Party, Lib ...

and Minister for Defence, Mikael Odenberg. Prior to the change in legislation, the main law regulating FRA was the defence intelligence act
SFS 2000:130
; and the telecommunications act of 1993
SFS 1993:597
required all companies operating a telecommunication network in Sweden to assist in government COMINT, under confidentiality. This act was replaced in 2003 by the electronic communications act
SFS 2003:389
, as a result of changes in

EU directives A directive is a legal act of the European Union that requires member states to achieve a particular result without dictating the means of achieving that result. Directives first have to be enacted into national law by member states before thei ...

The FRA-law

The new

bill Bill(s) may refer to: Common meanings * Banknote, paper cash (especially in the United States) * Bill (law), a proposed law put before a legislature * Invoice, commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer * Bill, a bird or animal's beak Pla ...

Prop. 2006/07:63
, generally referred to the "FRA law" ( sv, FRA-lagen), proposed changes in the defence intelligence act, the electronic communications act, the secrecy act of 1980
SFS 1980:100
, and the creation of an all new law regulating SIGINT. These changes would have allowed the FRA to monitor both wireless and cable bound signals passing the Swedish border without a court order, while also introducing several provisions designed to protect the privacy of individuals, according to the original proposal. The law's proponents argued for the need to give FRA new guidelines and a modernised legal framework, in order to regulate

Internet surveillance Computer and network surveillance is the monitoring of computer activity and data stored locally on a computer or data being transferred over computer networks such as the Internet. This monitoring is often carried out covertly and may be comp ...

and to combat threats to national security more effectively, such as terrorism and serious

transnational crime Transnational crimes are crimes that have actual or potential effect across national borders and crimes that are intrastate but offend fundamental values of the international community. The term is commonly used in the law enforcement and academic ...

; while opponents to the law claimed it enabled mass surveillance and violated

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 ...

rights. The

Riksdag The Riksdag (, ; also sv, riksdagen or ''Sveriges riksdag'' ) is the legislature and the supreme decision-making body of Sweden. Since 1971, the Riksdag has been a unicameral legislature with 349 members (), elected proportionally and se ...

passed the bill on June 18, 2008, after a heated debate amid public protests, and it went into effect January 1, 2009. Criticised for being too far-reaching, in an attempt to address the privacy concerns raised during the

parliamentary procedure Parliamentary procedure is the accepted rules, ethics, and customs governing meetings of an assembly or organization. Its object is to allow orderly deliberation upon questions of interest to the organization and thus to arrive at the sense ...

, the Government soon thereafter proposed an amendment to the law
Prop. 2008/09:201
, to strengthen protection of privacy by making court orders a requirement, and imposing several limits on the intelligence-gathering. The amendment passed the Riksdag October 14, 2009, and went into effect December 1, 2009
SFS 2008:717
.

Current legal framework

According to the law
SFS 2008:717
, SIGINT is only permitted in order to assess: # external military threats to the country, # conditions for Swedish participation in peace support operations and international humanitarian efforts or any threat to the security of national interests in the implementation of such efforts, # strategic matters regarding international

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

or other serious

that could threaten important national interests, # development and proliferation of

weapons of mass destruction A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to numerous individuals or cause great damage to artificial structures (e.g., buildings), natu ...

, military equipment and items referred to in the law on the control of dual-use items and technical assistance, # serious external threats to the public infrastructure, # conflicts abroad with ramifications for international security, # foreign intelligence operations against national interests, or # a foreign powers actions or intentions of vital importance to Swedish foreign policy or security and defence policy. The FRA is not allowed to initialize any surveillance on their own, and only gets access to communication lines as decided by The Defence Intelligence Court. Communications service providers are legally required, under confidentiality, to transfer cable communications crossing Swedish borders to specific "interaction points", where data may be accessed after a court order. The number of companies affected by the legislation was estimated as "being limited (approximately ten)". The law does not permit intelligence-gathering by interception of signals where both the sender and recipient is located in Sweden, only signals crossing the borders of Sweden. Initially, only the

, the Government Offices and the Swedish Armed Forces could use FRA's SIGINT capabilities. But after criticism from Swedish Security Service (SÄPO), a change was made allowing The Swedish National Police Board and SÄPO to make use of the FRA as well, under otherwise unchanged regulations. The bill
Prop. 2011/12:179
passed in the

November 28, 2012, with the help of the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

, and went into force January 1, 2013.

Data retention

Any personal data that may have been retained can not be stored for longer than 12 months, which is a year less than the maximum allowed by the Data Retention Directive. In 2008, prior to the change in legislation, a news report from SVT, based on an account from an

anonymous source In journalism, a source is a person, publication, or knowledge other record or document that gives timely information. Outside journalism, sources are sometimes known as "news sources". Examples of sources include but are not limited to officia ...

, alleged the FRA had been storing personal information for much longer; leading to a private citizen lodging a complaint with the police. Ultimately, a prosecutor did not launch a full-scale investigation, as it was deemed not illegal at the time.

Oversight

FRA is subject to regular reviews by several external government agencies.

The Defence Intelligence Court

All SIGINT has to be authorized by the Defence Intelligence Court (Swedish: '), a special court based in

Kista Kista () is a district in the borough of Rinkeby-Kista, Stockholm, Sweden. It has a strategic position located in between Sweden's main airport, the Stockholm-Arlanda International Airport and central Stockholm, and alongside the main natio ...

, independent of the FRA and appointed by the Government. It is composed of a chairman, assisted by one or two vice-chairmen, and 2-6 special members of the court, holding office for four years. The quorum of the court is a chairman and two special members, and each case is assessed and approved individually. A special

ombudsman An ombudsman (, also ,), ombud, ombuds, ombudswoman, ombudsperson or public advocate is an official who is usually appointed by the government or by parliament (usually with a significant degree of independence) to investigate complaints and at ...

from the court is also tasked to monitor and argue for the privacy rights of individuals. The decisions of the court cannot be appealed, something that is motivated, in part, by

information sensitivity Information sensitivity is the control of access to information or knowledge that might result in loss of an advantage or level of security if disclosed to others. Loss, misuse, modification, or unauthorized access to sensitive information can ...

and the fact that special knowledge and physical protection of infrastructure and documents is needed. A government agency of legal experts reviewed the amendment
Prop. 2008/09:201
in 2009, and did not express any objection: The court has been led by former district court chairman Lieutenant Colonel Runar Viksten since 2009.

The Defence Intelligence Commission

The Defence Intelligence Commission (Swedish: ''Statens inspektion för försvarsunderrättelseverksamheten'', SIUN) is the management authority tasked to supervise the FRA, ensuring it follows court orders issued by the Defence Intelligence Court, and that all laws and regulations governing FRA is followed, including privacy laws. SIUN obtains possession over all signals, and they are only made available to the FRA by permission of the court. Furthermore, the commission is obliged to launch an investigation whenever someone suspects they are the target of unauthorized SIGINT. The commission is not tasked or authorized to review decisions made by the court.

The Swedish Data Protection Authority

The Swedish Data Protection Authority is a public authority, organized under the

Ministry of Justice A Ministry of Justice is a common type of government department that serves as a justice ministry. Lists of current ministries of justice Named "Ministry" * Ministry of Justice (Abkhazia) * Ministry of Justice (Afghanistan) * Ministry of Justi ...

, tasked to protect the individual's privacy. As such, it audits the FRA on how they process personal data. In December 2010, after a two-year-long audit, a special mission led by the board examining FRA concluded its operations are within bounds of applicable legislation.

International cooperation

The legislation allows for the transfer of data to other states, if authorized by the Government, enabling exchanges of intelligence. In return, Sweden could receive information of importance to the national interest, something the

Director-General A director general or director-general (plural: ''directors general'', ''directors-general'', ''director generals'' or ''director-generals'' ) or general director is a senior executive officer, often the chief executive officer, within a governmen ...

of FRA Ingvar Åkesson and the Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt both stressed when the legislation was debated in 2008. In 2013, documents provided to the media by Edward Snowden appeared to confirm Sweden had shared intelligence with foreign intelligence agencies, revealing Sweden had provided the

NSA The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collec ...

with a "unique collection on high-priority Russian targets such as leadership, internal politics, and energy." In response,

Karin Enström was quoted as saying that Sweden's intelligence exchange with other countries is "critical for our security" and that "intelligence operations occur within a framework with clear legislation, strict controls and under parliamentary oversight." Anni Bölenius, head of communications at the FRA, told

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was est ...

: "We do in general have international cooperation with a number of countries, which is supported in Swedish legislation, but we do not comment on which ones we cooperate with".

Mass surveillance

The FRA have been contested since the change in its legislation, mainly because of the public perception the change would enable mass surveillance. The FRA categorically deny this allegation. Anni Bölenius, head of communications at the FRA, believes the public perception of mass surveillance is incorrect, saying: "It is not as we can turn on the traffic ourselves. We have to show cause and seek authorization." The

expressed their opposition to the legislation changes initially, but have since changed their views. In 2013, they provided support for an expansion of the law, to also include

SÄPO The Swedish Security Service ( sv, Säkerhetspolisen , abbreviated SÄPO ; until 1989 ''Rikspolisstyrelsens säkerhetsavdelning'', abbreviated RPS/Säk) is a Swedish government agency organised under the Ministry of Justice. It operates as a ...

and The Swedish National Police Board. This change comes after the amendment to the law, with the establishment of The Defence Intelligence Court and a narrowed scope, giving it more emphasis on defense intelligence. The court also hear each case on an individual basis, something

Sten Tolgfors Sten Sture Tolgfors (born 17 July 1966 in Forshaga) is a Swedish former politician, public affairs executive and government official who is serving as Governor of Västra Götaland County since 1 September 2022, having been appointed to the p ...

have been quoted as saying, "should render the debate on mass surveillance invalid."

Reports and reviews

* In 2008, the Swedish public interest litigator Centrum för rättvisa brought at case against the FRA to the

European Court of Human Rights The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that ...

. The court decided to push ahead with the case in spite of objections from the Swedish government and is expected to make a ruling in 2017. * In 2009, The Council on Legislation expressed its opinion on the amendment
Prop. 2008/09:201
, saying it results in "significant changes", "strengthening protection of privacy, as protected by the

constitution 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 pr ...

and conventions", because "SIGINT may only take place with expressly stated purposes in accordance with the law, which does not include general criminal investigation or prevention." * In 2010, a report issued after a two year long review by the Swedish Data Protection Authority said, "they hadn't made any observations indicating FRA process personal data in order to map general Internet usage." However, the Swedish Data Protection Authority found that the FRA did not follow the law in all cases, and that it was, in particular, difficult to follow up on how well the FRA follows the law through logs. The exact same violation was observed again by the authority in a follow-up review in 2016. So far, no sanctions have been exacted on the FRA for not following the law. * In 2014, as a result of the

NSA leaks Ongoing news reports in the international media have revealed operational details about the Anglophone cryptographic agencies' global surveillance of both foreign and domestic nationals. The reports mostly emanate from a cache of top secret ...

, LIBEbr>passed a motion
for a

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the Legislature, legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven Institutions of the European Union, institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and in ...

non-binding resolution, calling on Sweden to ensure its legislative frameworks were in line with the standards of ECHR and EU data protection legislation.

Footnotes

References

External links

The National Defence Radio Establishment official site

The Defence Intelligence Court official site (Swedish)

The Defence Intelligence Commission official site (Swedish)

The_Swedish_Data_Protection_Authority
_official_site.html" ;"title="Swedish Data Protection Authority">The Swedish Data Protection Authority
official site">Swedish Data Protection Authority">The Swedish Data Protection Authority
official site {{authority control Defence agencies of Sweden Government agencies of Sweden, Defence Radio Establishment Cryptography organizations Signals intelligence agencies Military intelligence agencies Military of Sweden Swedish intelligence agencies 1942 establishments in Sweden Government agencies established in 1942 2008 in law 2009 in law Politics of Sweden Terrorism laws Law of Sweden Mass surveillance