general information card index (kartoteka ogólnoinformacyjna, KOI)

A card index of the SB's current and completed operational activities, checked before someone was recruited or placed under surveillance.

According to the glossary of the IPN Archival Inventory, the KOI was a collection of registration cards for operational cases – current and closed – and for personal sources of information removed from the agent network. It was kept by Division III of Bureau “C” of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (as the Central General Information Card Index) and by the “C” divisions of the regional units; each regional division had its own KOI with the registrations of its own units. Current cases were recorded on EO-4-A cards, closed cases and removed sources on E-14 cards.¹

The index also covered, among others, registrations of people handled by the military services (the WSW, the Second Directorate of the General Staff and the Reconnaissance Directorate of the Border Protection Troops, WOP), of people with access to classified documents, of people banned from travelling abroad and of people under surveillance. Before taking operational action, an SB unit sent the “C” branch a query about the person; also linked to the index is coordination, that is, establishing which unit was responsible for a given case.^1,2