In accordance with applicable law and regulations, the Authority allows Albanian citizens to exercise their right to informational self-determination and gain access to all data pertaining to their person that were produced and managed by Former State Security bodies.

The Authority prepares documents pertaining to individual Albanian citizens at their request, which may be submitted by post in the form of a written letter or a request form available at their website, by email or online.

Based on the information provided in the request, the employees of the Authority conduct a document search using available indexed and archival tools. During preparation, documents are photocopied and in accordance with applicable laws and regulations, these copies are anonymized if necessary to obscure unauthorized information.

“Anonymization" is the process by which personal and sensitive data are irreversibly erased/made unreadable, in such a way that the data subject can no longer be identified directly or indirectly, either by the data controller or in collaboration with any other party.

In accordance with applicable law, certain types of data may only be viewed by certain categories of persons, including persons under surveillance of whom the date was gathered by Former state security bodies, network persons, operative contacts, officials and so-called third parties who are mentioned in the documents but belong to neither of the Former categories.

Information amendment is primarily provided for victims, i.e., persons formerly under surveillance by Former State Security bodies, but in the case of deceased persons, their relatives as determined by law may also view the documents pertaining to the person in question. In these regards, parents, children and sibling are entitled to the same information amendment rights as the deceased person.

In accordance with applicable law, persons formerly under surveillance are entitled to the identification of network persons, operative contacts or officials that are mentioned in documents pertaining to the person in question. However, network persons will only be identified by the Archives at the express request of the person entitled to this information, and if such individuals can be unambiguously identified, the person submitting the request will be provided the personal information of the network person observed and reported on them.

If the person requesting access to the information is a Former network person or official, then such persons shall only be provided with information specifically pertaining to them and shall not be entitled to see documents they have prepared for Former state security bodies.

After the documents are prepared, the employees of the Authority will inform the person in question how the produced copies of their documents may be obtained. The copies may be received in person at the Authority premises or sent via post (in case that is not found any documents).

The handling of documents within the framework of scientific research and civic education aims to inform the public, but with a focus on the protection of personal data in accordance with the legal obligations of law no. 45/2015 (amended), as well as Law no.9887/2008 "On the protection of personal data", and in implementation of the guide for researchers/media approved by decision of the Authority.

All documents created by the Former State Security that contain personal or sensitive data are subject to anonymization. This category does not include investigative-judicial documents, which were made public earlier.

How is anonymization done?

✓ The names of third parties and associates of the Former State Security are deleted/made illegible, leaving only the initials, (or removing the initials in the case of publicly known persons).

✓ The personal and sensitive data of the affected party are deleted/made unreadable;

✓ The personal and sensitive data of third parties and Former State Security employees are deleted/made unreadable, if these data directly or indirectly make the data subject identifiable;

✓ In cases where we are dealing with long lists of names of non-historical persons, the names are erased in the block and only the ordinal number is left;

With the new legal changes of law no. 45/2015 (amended), they have brought innovation by unifying the law on the practice of making available for consultation the documentation/file at the offices of the Authority for study purposes, it is now done on documents where names appear of third parties, while for making available the documents approved by the decision of the Authority, it is done by implementing the process of anonymity

Documentation is made available in duplicate for security reasons, even if the condition of documentation is not good. Also, the use of duplicates will be done even when the original is being used by another applicant at the same time.