The role and tasks of Politiets Efterretningstjeneste (abbreviated to PET or referred to as the Service)

In its capacity as the national security and intelligence service of Denmark, PET must prevent, investigate and counter operations and activities that pose or may pose a threat to the preservation of Denmark as a free, democratic and safe country. Therefore the main objective of the Service is to counter and fight threats against the national security and the safety of the population.

To preserve the national security is, however, not the only task of an intelligence service. An efficient and permanent preservation of the national security and order requires permanent, wide-ranging and co-ordinated efforts by a number of authorities.

As the national security authority, PET obviously plays an important part in the efforts to ensure the direction and substance of the joint efforts in relation to the contributions from the individual bodies and authorities.

The main task of PET’s intelligence activity is to prevent and investigate actions and undertakings that may jeopardise the independence, security and legal order of the State, and to prevent these actions or undertakings from being implemented or developed.

The actions that, in this connection, fall within PET’s area of responsibility are primarily the actions as defined in accordance with Chapter 12 and 13 of the Danish Penal Code. Such actions include attacks on the Constitution, terrorism, and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, extremism and espionage. PET must provide the basis for handling such threats as early in the process and as appropriately as possible. (The Provisions of the Minister of Justice regarding the Service include a description of the tasks of PET).

PET’s actions are essentially preventive. From the information gathered, processed and analysed by PET, the objective is to procure as much information as possible on the capacity, determination and ability of PET’s target persons and target groups to commit any such action as mentioned above.

On this basis, the Service prepares assessments and risk analyses that again provide the basis for an evaluation of what action that must be implemented to prevent any threats from developing further. Such actions may, among other things, consist of surveillance of target persons or target groups with the aim of assessing whether an identified and potential threat may develop further. By doing so the actions of PET differ from the investigations carried out by the rest of the police, where the police often find themselves in a situation where they have no knowledge of a criminal offence until it is already committed.

Consequently, it is a characteristic of most of the matters that PET deals with that they do not develop into actual criminal cases. This also means that the results of the work carried out by the Service traditionally have not been made known to or shall not be brought to the knowledge of the public in the same way as the work of the rest of the Danish police. This situation may change slightly, as the new Danish legislation on terrorism expands the scope of the Intelligence Service so that PET’s investigations, to a higher degree than previously, may provide the basis of actual criminal cases or other more offensive initiatives.

Furthermore, the intelligence activities of the Service provide the basis for PET to act as adviser to the government, to a number of public authorities and to private enterprises regarding issues of importance to the security of the Danish society and its citizens. The same applies to matters in relation to the rest of the Danish police, airport authorities and the many other authorities involved in the general preparation of civil emergency in Denmark.

In this respect, PET also prepares risk analyses that are included in determining the specific level of preparedness in Denmark. PET does not determine the actual preparedness initiatives to be implemented by the individual authorities but will only provide some recommendations based on the assessments made.

Similarly, PET makes threat assessments concerning official foreign missions in Denmark, visits by heads of state and international conferences etc. held in Denmark.

In addition to this, PET plays an important part in connection with the protection of members of the Royal Family and the Government etc. as well as having an advisory function regarding the security responsibilities of the civil administration.