After the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) gradually classified the statistical data on digital surveillance as secret over the past few years and withdrew it from the public, the federal government is now again providing information on the sending of so-called silent SMS messages. A current answer to a query from the left-wing faction at least shows how often the federal police have recently used this instrument. The new figures lift the curtain of secrecy to some extent and at the same time point to a historic low for this classic surveillance method.
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Silent SMS are short messages that are not displayed on the target phone. The user doesn’t notice anything, but when received, the mobile phone reports back invisibly to the registered radio cell and thus generates connection data for the network operator. This allows investigators to determine the approximate location and create movement profiles. In 2023, the federal government caused criticism when it completely disappeared the statistics on this matter in the Bundestag’s secret appendices.
Historical decline
The numbers now published suggest that the importance of these “stealth pings” is dwindling. In the second half of 2025, the Federal Police only sent 6,605 silent SMS messages in criminal investigations.
For comparison: In 2021, the Federal Police sent 47,951 tracking SMSes, in 2022 at least 19,703 and a further 1,360 via external service providers. The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) used 68,152 silent SMS messages in 2021 and around 51,950 in 2022. The current information no longer contains any information about this for the second half of 2025. Either the means is no longer used, is no longer recorded statistically or the secrecy still applies to the BKA. The Interior Department only lets it be known that the BKA did not inform a single person who might be affected about such a location.
The break-in suggests that the authorities have changed their surveillance methods. More modern and much more profound instruments remain under lock and key anyway.
Anyone who wants to know, for example, how often federal authorities have used state trojans for source telecommunications monitoring (TKÜ) or for online searches will hardly receive any information. In the public part of the answer, the BMI only admits that the Federal Police carried out a source TKÜ and an online search on one device each in the second half of 2025. The technical implementation was carried out by the BKA. During the same period, the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office recorded a total of 23 orders in eight investigations, of which 15 were implemented. The countries are more willing to provide information about the relevant use of state trojans.
Secrecy remains the rule
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The IMSI catcher, which can be used to record identification numbers and locations of mobile phones, appears in the public part of the answer: The Federal Police used it 15 times in the second half of 2025, after 44 operations in 2021. The BKA carried out 75 measures with IMSI catchers throughout last year.
As soon as the questions concern technical details such as the hardware and software used for IMSI and WLAN catchers, silent SMS or so-called IP catching, the government refers again to the Bundestag’s Secret Protection Office. For security reasons, relevant information is generally excluded from public information for the federal secret services.
The partial return to transparency in silent SMS is a small success for parliamentary control. However, it does not change the fact that secrecy has now become the rule in modern IT monitoring.
(nen)
