Intelligence services to get boost
Greek police and the Citizens’ Protection Ministry are creating a new intelligence service in an attempt to upgrade the country’s data gathering and processing capabilities.
According reports, the division of Information Management and Analysis (DIDAP) will be moved by the end of October from the eighth floor of the Greek police headquarters (GADA) in central Athens, to a new building in the western suburb of Peristeri, in a bid to improve its operational capabilities.
One of the primary reasons for the move to a new building with state-of-the-art equipment is the inability of the current systems at GADA to support and process the increased amount of data gathered from surveillance and other operations.
“The operational capabilities of the service will more than double,” a senior officer told Kathimerini, adding that the GADA building is not equipped to handle the increased demands of new technologies.
Indeed, a high-ranking official at the Citizens’ Protection Ministry told Kathimerini that, the intelligence services’ surveillance capabilities are being upgraded with the help of British experts.
DIDAP is also reportedly developing the relevant infrastructure to operate a flight passenger name record (PNR) database. DIDAP was set up in 2014 with the primary aim to serve as a data bank that would collect information from all the divisions of the Greek police and process data linked to organized crime and terrorism.
Like the counterterrorism unit and the National Intelligence Agency (EYP), it has an interface system and advanced software for processing the large amount of information it gathers.
In 2016, DIDAP secured the sum of 820,000 euros from the European Internal Security Fund as part of a program to create a "modern” operations center and specialized software that will link databases together.
The stated objective of DIDAP is to create a space that will be equipped with modern technical infrastructure and specialized software applications, which will provide immediate and “full support in investigations into organized crime and terrorism.”
