The German government cannot say how often messenger monitoring is used because of the effort involved

Assessment

In July 2026 the Justice Ministry told MP Marcel Emmerich that a count "cannot be provided because of the unreasonable effort that would be associated with answering," and answered only for the Federal Prosecutor. On 9 September the Interior Ministry, asked the same question for BKA, Customs and Federal Police for 2025, gave a different reason: the information is "particularly in need of secrecy" and even confirming which measures exist would reveal "capabilities or capability gaps." The first answer was replaced by a second, incompatible one. Neither is a number.