Digital access promised for former Communist secret police files

The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes and Security Services Archive have unveiled plans to make the Communist secret police files and other material available electronically rather than in paper form. The first step will allow researchers access to already digitalised archives at two Prague archive centres and one near Brno. This should be up and running on Monday. Over the next year, the institute will work at allowing Internet access to digital files using a password. Questions have been raised by the Czech media over how much material has already been digitalised and how long it will take to copy the total 280 million pages of archives. The state institutions have come under recent attack for their alleged failure to publish material.