According to the public broadcaster, the wiretapping was stopped last month after it came into light following a complaint from a local prosecutor.
The Thuringia Interior Ministry ordered to start recording the telephone conversations in 1999. According to Mitteldeutsche Rundfunk, tens of thousands of conversations between different law enforcement members and representatives of social services, attorneys and journalists, among others, were recorded without informing the people or asking their permission.
It is still not clear who was responsible for deciding which data was to be stored and what information was destroyed.
An investigation is underway.
