Norway Proposes Broader Espionage Crimes and Covert Police Powers

Norway’s government has opened a consultation on proposals to make more forms of assistance to foreign intelligence operations criminal offences and expand the covert investigative powers available to the Police Security Service (PST). The proposals were released on 2 November 2026 and are not yet law.

The Ministry of Justice and Public Security proposes changes to the Penal Code, Criminal Procedure Act and Police Act. Its consultation paper, reference 26/5994, says the changes would reach certain forms of collecting or sharing information that fall outside existing espionage offences. It also proposes increasing maximum penalties under several existing intelligence-related provisions.

Under the procedural changes, PST would be able to seek authorization to use covert coercive investigative measures to investigate, prevent and avert offences under the proposed new criminal provisions. The ministry has not announced that these new powers have already taken effect. Public responses are invited until 2 February 2027.

The government says it is responding to a changing security threat, including intelligence operations conducted for foreign states that may involve information not covered by current offences. Justice Minister Astri Aas-Hansen said the authorities need stronger tools to investigate and prosecute potentially damaging intelligence activity. That is the government’s justification for the proposed changes, not an independently verified assessment of the scale of any particular foreign operation.

Wider powers and civil-liberties safeguards

The proposal has prompted competing parliamentary reactions about the balance between national security and civil rights. In reporting published on 2 November by Norwegian news agency NTB, opposition Conservative Party justice spokesperson Mari Holm Lønseth welcomed tightening the law, arguing that existing espionage legislation had not kept pace with current threats.

NTB also reported that Green Party lawmaker Lars Lønberg Henriksen regarded stronger tools as necessary but cautioned against using expanded covert powers for general surveillance. The government itself said the protection of expression, access to information and privacy must remain part of the assessment and that intrusions should not go beyond what is necessary.

These are positions in a consultation debate. They do not establish that PST has misused existing powers or that the draft provisions violate constitutional or human-rights law. Whether the text offers sufficient safeguards will depend on the detailed clauses, oversight arrangements and later legislative decisions.

The 2 November consultation should also be distinguished from a separate December 2025 proposal to widen PST’s preventive powers under section 17d of the Police Act. Norwegian press organizations objected to aspects of that earlier proposal in March 2026, warning about potential effects on journalistic source confidentiality. Those objections are relevant background to the broader surveillance debate, but they are not a formal response to the new November 2026 draft.

What happens next

The consultation invites courts, law-enforcement agencies, civil-rights groups, media organizations and members of the public to comment by 2 February 2027. The government can then revise the proposals before any parliamentary bill is introduced. No final statute, implementation date or new prosecution has been established by this announcement.

The public-interest questions are how broadly the draft defines prohibited assistance to foreign intelligence, what judicial authorization and oversight would apply to covert measures, and whether the final text protects legitimate journalism, research and other lawful information gathering. Those questions warrant examination of the consultation paper and subsequent responses, not assumptions that ordinary reporting has already become a crime.

For now, the verified development is the opening of a formal consultation on expanded criminal offences and investigative authority. The proposal’s adoption, amendment or rejection remains a matter for the legislative process.