The personal files of officers of the security police and the criminal police, civilian employees, and soldiers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (and its predecessors: Department of Public Security, Ministry of Public Security, and Committee for Public Security) were kept in separate collections (along with the personal files of professional firefighters, due to the institutional subordination of the firefighting service to the ministry). A typical file consisted of three parts:

1) personal information (including CVs, personal forms, etc. related to their entry to the service),

2) special controls (documentation of checks done on the functionary and their family),

3) course of service (containing a special page covering all promotions/demotions/change of position, deployment, decorations, etc., as well as documentation concerning the course of service: superiors’ opinions, requests for transfer or reassignment, profile of the functionary’s conduct, history, etc., or applications, as well as documentation of disciplinary and investigation proceedings concerning the functionary concerned).

It should be stressed that although the personal file contained information about the deployment of the functionary concerned, it never contained information on the operative tasks they performed.