Law N° 60/2013 of 22/08/2013 regulating the Interception of Communications

Law N° 60/2013 of 22/08/2013 regulating the interception of communications is Rwanda's dedicated statute governing lawful communications surveillance. It establishes a general prohibition on intercepting any communication carried over a public or private communication system without authorisation from a competent authority (Article 5), and then sets out the limited circumstances in which interception is permitted. It sits alongside the surveillance and content-related powers in Law N° 60/2018 on the prevention and punishment of cyber crimes and the data-protection regime in Law N° 058/2021, and forms the core of Rwanda's communications-surveillance framework. The power to seek interception is confined to specified security organs, the Rwanda Defence Force, the Rwanda National Police, and the National Intelligence and Security Service. Critically for any assessment of oversight, authorisation is granted not by a judge but by a National Prosecutor designated by the Minister of Justice: a warrant is issued by that prosecutor, and in cases of urgent public-security interest a verbal warrant may be given provided it is confirmed in writing within 24 hours, failing which the interception is presumed illegal. This prosecutorial-authorisation model means the independent-oversight safeguards are weaker than judicial-warrant systems, a point repeatedly made by civil-society and human-rights observers given Rwanda's documented surveillance practices. On the provider side, communication service providers are obliged under Article 7 to ensure that their systems are technically capable of supporting interception at all times, embedding interception capability into the telecommunications infrastructure. The provision of communications metadata is governed by the same process that applies to interception of content. For oversight, Article 12 provides for inspectors appointed by Presidential Order to monitor those authorised to intercept and to verify that interceptions are carried out in accordance with the law; the role may be performed by a police officer or by the intelligence service depending on the requesting body. The Law also expressly prohibits the interception of the President's communications. The Summary should be read without overstating the strength of these safeguards: oversight rests on executive-appointed prosecutors and inspectors rather than independent judicial control, there is no general statutory requirement to notify surveillance subjects, and the Law contains no express protection for journalists, lawyers or other confidential communications. It is, accordingly, a central focus of debate on privacy and free expression in Rwanda and should be read together with the communications-confidentiality guarantee in Article 23 of the Constitution.

1. 1Establishes that the interception of any communication carried over a public or private communication system without authorisation from a competent authority is unlawful (Article 5).
2. 2Restricts the power to apply for interception to specified security organs, the Rwanda Defence Force, the Rwanda National Police and the National Intelligence and Security Service.
3. 3Requires a warrant granted by a National Prosecutor designated by the Minister of Justice (authorisation by a prosecutor rather than a judge); in urgent public-security cases a verbal warrant may be given but must be confirmed in writing within 24 hours or the interception is presumed illegal.
4. 4Obliges communication service providers to ensure their systems are technically capable of supporting interception at all times (Article 7).
5. 5Provides for inspectors appointed by Presidential Order to monitor authorised persons (Article 12), and expressly prohibits interception of the President's communications.
6. 6Governs the provision of communications metadata under the same authorisation process.