New Digital Undercover Agents Protocol

Resolution 828/2025 of the Ministry of Security, published in the official gazette on July 15, 2025, approved the new Protocol for the Operation of Digital Undercover Agents and Digital Revealing Agents (the “Protocol”), seeking to guarantee legal certainty, standardization, and traceability of the digital undercover agents’ actions. The Protocol also seeks to adapt special investigation techniques to the challenges of crime in virtual environments.

The Protocol applies to the two categories of digital agents regulated in Law 27,319, which establishes the necessary authorizations and means to investigate, prevent, and fight complex crimes:

• Digital undercover agents: members of security forces who infiltrate virtual spaces with a fictitious identity to collect evidence on complex crimes, always under judicial authorization.
• Digital revealing agents: members of the security forces designated to simulate interest or take part in specific criminal activities to identify perpetrators, arrest them, seize assets, rescue victims, or gather evidence. Unlike undercover agents, their involvement is not sustained and does not entail infiltrating the criminal organization.

Among its main dispositions, the Protocol establishes that undercover operations must be authorized through court order and communicated to the Special Unit for Undercover Agents. Once the operation has been authorized, the appointed agent must choose a fictional virtual identity (or "avatar"), which must be securely recorded with a unique code and maintained in strict secrecy by all the parties and officials involved. In addition, when necessary, the collaboration of the Argentine Registry of Persons can be requested to incorporate the fictitious data in its databases and issue the supporting physical or digital documentation necessary for the operation.

Furthermore, the Protocol provides that Federal Police and Security Forces, along with CS5, under the authority of the Directorate for Cybercrime and Cyber Affairs, must create avatars that remain available for agents’ procedural use in cyberspace investigations.

Finally, the Protocol limits the use of fictional identities and avatars for the approved investigation, therefore, reusing it is prohibited, unless it involves the same agent and conditions still ensure their identity’s safety and secrecy.