Critical infrastructure: More checks for sabotage risk

The Federal Cabinet has decided to expand the security checks for employees in important critical infrastructure companies. This is intended to reduce the risk of sabotage actions with an extremist background or on behalf of a foreign secret service.

The regulation is intended to protect facilities such as the railway or waterworks from dangerous interference by so-called insider perpetrators, i.e. people with access to important facilities. To do this, we will redefine which authorities and parts of the company are sensitive to security.

During a security check, authorities check in advance whether a person is reliable - for example, whether there is evidence of extremism or whether someone is susceptible to blackmail. The person concerned must agree to the review. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) is involved in the reviews. How intense this is in each individual case depends on how high the security interest is in the respective workplace.

The federal government justifies the new regulation with the increased risk of attacks below the threshold of war, for example through sabotage or espionage. The focus is particularly on the threat from Russia, which, according to security authorities, has increased especially since the start of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine in 2022.

In December, the Bundestag had already tightened the checks by changing the law. The new version of the regulation now expands the range of activities and facilities in which a security clearance can be required.

The new data to be included include operators of systems that can restart the power grid after a total failure as well as operators of digital energy systems with an output of more than three gigawatts. It is also about large waterworks that pump at least 22 million cubic meters of drinking water per year or the control centers of larger dams.