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The federal administration was too lax with the data relating to the Berset case. Now the judiciary is getting involved.
Special investigator Peter Marti enjoyed a veritable flood of mail. He had only requested the emails from Federal Councilor Alain Berset’s then head of communications, Peter Lauener, from a period of six weeks. However, the Federal Office for Information Technology and Telecommunications (BIT) delivered Lauener’s entire mail traffic to him. over years.
The Finance Department, to which the BIT belongs, is clear: that shouldn’t have happened. The investigation report published today by the finance department at the request of Radio SRF attributes the misconduct of the authority to “the fact that the employees continued an existing practice without questioning it”. In the present case in particular, this is “difficult to understand”.
Legend:
Federal Councilor Alain Berset (right) with Peter Lauener, who was then responsible for communications.
KEYSTONE/Alessandro della Valle
It was only when the too many e-mails were sent that special investigator Marti found out about allegedly close contacts between Federal Councilor Berset and Ringier publisher Marc Walder and allegedly systematic leaks to Ringier Verlag.
Not an isolated case
Did someone want to specifically damage the SP Federal Councilor Berset with the complete mail delivery? Individual social democratic politicians expressed this suspicion at the beginning of the year. And they pointed out that at that time SVP Finance Minister Ueli Maurer was still in office and therefore responsible for the Federal Office for IT and Telecommunications.
Did Maurer or those around him instruct the BIT to send incriminating emails to the special investigator without being asked? The investigation report denies this. There it says: “Both the BIT and the General Secretariat of the Federal Department of Finance unanimously deny the existence of such an instruction.” This statement is also consistent with the findings of the present study.
Not only in the case of Berset’s former head of communications Peter Lauener, but also in other cases, the BIT has published far too many emails. The report cites at least eight other similar cases over the past five years.
personal rights violated
Those responsible took the position that they could not and should not access mailboxes and filter out desired mails. In the present case, however, the investigation report is unequivocal: Peter Lauener’s personal rights were violated by the unfiltered release of all emails.
The report also raises the question of whether those responsible for the publication violated official secrecy. “This could possibly be examined in criminal proceedings,” says the report.
And in fact, the federal prosecutor’s office confirmed to Radio SRF that they have now initiated preliminary investigations into the case. The lax handling of sensitive data in the federal administration is now a matter for the judiciary.