Gerhard Schindler

Gerhard Schindler (born 4 October 1952 in Kollig, West Germany) is a German civil servant and former President of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the German Federal Intelligence Service.

Life Schindler's parents are from Transylvania and Bessarabia. He completed his Abitur in 1972 He is seen as an authority on crime, terrorism, IT security, and computer crime. In 2012, he replaced Ernst Uhrlau as president of the Bundesnachrichtendienst.

Since November 2016 Schindler is consulting businesses in security issues at the consulting company friedrich30.

Schindler has been a member of the Free Democratic Party since university. From 1989 to 1994, he was a member of the local council in Nörvenich.

He is married and has one child.

Controversy Schindler made headlines in May 2012 when he used his personal agency airplane (a Dassault Falcon 900) to transport a rug weighing from Afghanistan back to Germany for free as a "personal favor" for Dirk Niebel, the Federal Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development. Niebel did not make a customs declaration or payment of duty until after the issue was investigated by Der Spiegel, a German weekly news magazine. Schindler and Niebel's public statements contradicted each other.

In July 2013, Schindler was pressed for answers in the wake of the Global surveillance disclosures when it was reported that the German Army was using PRISM to support its operations in Afghanistan as early as 2011. The BND stated that a separate NATO platform was in use, which was contested by the Federal Ministry of Defence.

Beginning on 10 August 2013, German media reported that under Schindler's direction, the BND was passing mobile phone data to the United States that was used in the U.S.'s targeted killing program.

In April 2015, Schindler was criticized by politicians of all parties in the German Parliament for the BND's cooperation with the NSA for spying on European firms and politicians, including German interests. The Left and the Green Party called for Schindler to be fired; the Social Democratic Party, the junior coalition partner, called for an investigation.