The incidence of industrial espionage and spying on competitors has been steadily increasing since the 1990s. This affects not only large corporations, but also small and medium-sized companies and research institutions. Moreover, the spying activities are accompanied by intensive efforts to strategically infiltrate the German scientific landscape and to thereby glean information from German universities and research institutions already at a very early stage.

From both a practical and a legal viewpoint, Germany is not sufficiently prepared for the challenges this entails. The deficits are particularly evident in the area of law enforcement. Penal provisions specifically tailored to industrial espionage and spying on competitors are lacking. From a criminological viewpoint, it can also be assumed that many cases remain unreported. A significant reason for this is that affected companies fear that their reputation would suffer or that even more trade secrets would be endangered if it became known that they had fallen victim to espionage. A further problem appears to be that in Germany, the responsibility for combating these phenomena is spread across numerous security authorities – from the intelligence services to emergency response and law enforcement agencies. For those affected, it is thus often difficult in individual cases to identify the office that is responsible for dealing with their concern. While preventive state and private security initiatives do exist, in many cases their effectiveness is limited. It is therefore imperative that an all-encompassing national industrial protection strategy be developed.