Abbreviation .BK Federal agency
(Operations jurisdiction) Austria | Formed 2002 | |
Legal personality Governmental: Government agency Legal jurisdiction As per operations jurisdiction. Constituting instrument Federal Criminal Police Office Law (Bundeskriminalamtgesetz) | ||
The Federal Criminal Police Office (German: Bundeskriminalamt), abbreviated .BK, is the federal police force in the Republic of Austria. Its role is to combat crime nationwide and serve as a center for cooperation with international police functions. Created in 2002 under a special law called the Federal Investigation Bureau Law (German: Bundeskriminalamtgesetz), the .BK is also sometimes referred to as the Austrian Criminal Intelligence Service. It should not be confused with the Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany which is also called the Bundeskriminalamt but abbreviated BKA.
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Missions
The main missions of the .BK are international cooperation, investigations, crime prevention and collating crime statistics. It is Austria’s national central bureau for the European Police Office (Europol), Schengen Information System and International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol).
Structure
The .BK is subordinate to the Generaldirektion für die öffentliche Sicherheit ("GDföS", "Directorate General for Public Security") in the Federal Ministry of the Interior in Vienna. It is therefore not directly linked with the Federal Police, which is a separate organisation within the Directorate General for Public Security. This new organisation was conceived as a better solution to combatting supraregional and serious crime due to its structure, specially trained personnel and equipment.
Facts
The abbreviation ".BK" was chosen so as not to be confused with the Austrian Federal Chancellor's Office (Bundeskanzleramt) which is abbreviated "BKA". The full stop before the BK is part of the corporate design of the Interior Ministry. The .BK's headquarters is in the Alsergrund district of Vienna on Josef-Holaubek-Platz which is named after a former superintendent of the Viennese police.