The fact that the ministry had not done this earlier had caused criticism at a committee meeting in mid-March. However, the ministry does not want to make the requested call data available to the deputies - this is neither legally permissible nor possible, it was said in a press release.

"Huge Workload"

The committee receives an activity log showing which individuals and departments have accessed the central file of the Lower Austria State Police Directorate and other relevant files. It will also show who made which changes, it was said. Individual document versions will be delivered or successively supplied, as the Ministry of the Interior spoke of a "huge workload".

The factions had previously complained that the ministry had refused to transmit the data due to legal concerns. Even ÖVP faction leader Andreas Hanger had advocated that the log data be made accessible to the committee - in a legally secure manner.

The ministry now wants to release the requested data and thus act "in the spirit of correct cooperation" with the Pilnacek investigation committee. However, there are still data protection and constitutional concerns. Log data, according to the Data Protection Act, are "strictly purpose-bound and may only be used to verify the legality of data processing or in criminal proceedings - but not for parliamentary investigation purposes". The requested comprehensive system evaluation without further justification constitutes an inadmissible exploratory evidence - that is, evidence based only on vague suspicions. Furthermore, data is requested until the first committee hearing in January 2026 - but the investigation period ends in September 2025.

No Call Data Delivery

The situation is different with call data from service phones, which the committee has also requested. This concerns, for example, the data of police officers involved in the case. These cannot be delivered, "as this is legally not permissible on the one hand and simply no longer exists on the other," according to the Ministry of the Interior. The requested call data retrieval is a coercive measure for which there is no legal basis within the framework of the committee. The ministry must not become the investigative body of the parliament. Furthermore, the request is too generally formulated, and the demand for telephone data from more than 25 people over almost two years also constitutes inadmissible exploratory evidence.

In addition, the Civil Service Law prohibits control measures in the voice telephony of employees. Even voluntary disclosure is inadmissible according to the Ministry of the Interior, as genuine voluntariness "cannot exist in the employment law power imbalance between employer and employees". A1 also stores traffic data for a maximum of six months, but the investigation period is far in the past.

(APA/Red)

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