The Ministry of Justice announced, on 29 November 2022, that the Communications Deprivation, Cyber Security and Privacy Bill had been tabled in the Greek Parliament. In particular, the Ministry highlighted that the bill aims to address shortcomings in the protection to citizens' rights and a necessary balance between the protection of privacy and national security.

More specifically, the Ministry noted that 'national security reasons' under the bill are substantially narrowed, and are defined in the bill as reasons related to the protection of the basic functions of the state and the fundamental interest of Greek citizens, while an indicative list includes reasons related to national defence, foreign policy, energy security, and cybersecurity. Likewise, the Ministry detailed that increased documentation requirements are placed on the declassification of information for national security reasons. Notably, the Ministry provided that requests for declassification under the bill must include the factors that constitute a risk, the object of the declassification or its content, and the absolutely necessary time period.

In addition, the Ministry outlined that, under the bill, the list of crimes justifying declassification of information has been streamlined, and that only for crimes of particular infamy may personal information confidentiality be lost.

Further, the Ministry stated that the bill provides for a Unified Cybersecurity Reference Centre ('the Centre') in the General Directorate of Cybersecurity of the General Secretariat of Telecommunications and Posts. Specifically, the Ministry described that the Centre under the bill aims to develop, support, and strengthen capacities at the national level for the detection and response to cyber attacks.

You can read the announcement, only available in Greek, here.