Internal Security Agency (ABW)

Status

The Act of 24 May 2002 creates the Internal Security Agency, responsible for protecting the internal security of the state and its constitutional order (art. 1).¹

The Head of the ABW is a central government administration body and reports directly to the Prime Minister; his activities are subject to oversight by the Sejm (art. 3). The Prime Minister appoints and dismisses the Head of the ABW after consulting the President, the College for Special Services (Kolegium do Spraw Służb Specjalnych) and the Sejm Special Services Committee (art. 14).¹

Tasks

The ABW’s tasks include identifying, preventing and combating threats to the internal security of the state and its constitutional order, including its sovereignty, territorial integrity and defence (art. 5(1)(1)).¹

The ABW identifies, prevents and detects, among other things, the offences of espionage and terrorism, the unlawful disclosure or use of classified information, offences against the economic foundations of the state, corruption among persons holding public office where it may threaten state security, offences involving goods and technologies of strategic importance, and international illegal trafficking in arms, ammunition, explosives, weapons of mass destruction, narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances (art. 5(1)(2)).¹

According to the 2026 consolidated text, the ABW also identifies threats to the ICT systems of public administration bodies that are essential to the continuity of the state’s functioning and to those of critical infrastructure operators (art. 5(1)(2a)), carries out tasks relating to the protection of classified information and acts as the national security authority in international relations (point 3), and obtains, analyses and passes to the competent bodies information relevant to internal security (point 4).²

Outside Poland the ABW may act only in connection with its activities in Poland and only in respect of its tasks relating to offences (art. 5(2)).²

The ABW hosts the CSIRT GOV team, run by the Head of the ABW under art. 26(7) of the Act on the National Cybersecurity System; it coordinates the response to computer incidents in public administration and critical infrastructure systems.^3,4

Powers and judicial control

ABW officers carry out operational and reconnaissance activities and inquiries and investigations in order to identify, prevent and detect offences, as well as operational and analytical activities to obtain information relevant to state security; within the Agency’s remit they have the procedural powers of the Police (art. 21).²

Operational control is ordered by a decision of the Regional Court in Warsaw on a written application from the Head of the ABW, submitted after obtaining the written consent of the First Deputy Prosecutor General – National Prosecutor. In urgent cases the Head of the ABW may order it himself, with the same consent, and must apply to the court at the same time; if the court does not grant consent within 5 days, the operational control is stopped and the material destroyed (art. 27(1)–(3)).²

Direction and oversight

The Prime Minister sets the direction of the Agencies’ work through guidelines; each year by 31 January the heads submit activity reports to the Prime Minister (art. 7). Information that may be of significant importance for security is passed without delay to the President and the Prime Minister (art. 18).²

The Head of the ABW may cooperate with the authorities and services of other states and with international organisations; entering into cooperation requires the consent of the Prime Minister (art. 8). A foreign service may take part in intelligence activities on Polish territory only with the consent of the Head of the ABW or the AW, recorded in a register they keep (art. 8a).²

The Sejm Special Services Committee gives its opinion on, among other things, draft budgets, candidates for heads and deputy heads, and the heads’ annual reports, and it considers complaints about the services’ activities; its sittings are closed (arts 137–142 of the Standing Orders of the Sejm, as summarised by the ABW).⁵

Structure in 2002

The first statute, issued by Order No. 73 of the Prime Minister of 26 June 2002 and in force from 29 June 2002, provided for 31 units, including a Counter-Intelligence Department, a Department for Countering Corruption, Terrorism and Organised Crime, a Department for the Protection of Classified Information, an ICT Security Department, a Records and Archives Office and 15 regional branches in provincial capitals. The present structure may differ.⁶

Relations with other services

Counterintelligence in the armed forces is the responsibility of the SKW, and foreign intelligence that of the AW. The heads of the ABW, AW, CBA, SKW and SWW attend meetings of the College for Special Services without being members (art. 12).²