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The disclosure, at nyitottaktak.hu, opens several categories of state security records while withholding foreign intelligence materials on national security grounds.
The Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security (ÁBTL) launched the database under legislation adopted in September, providing free access to records documenting the former surveillance network.
Three categories are currently available: the so-called No. 6 registration forms, recruitment logs known as “B” logs, and the “H” network database.
The No. 6 forms contain informants’ personal identification details on the front and key information about their activities on the reverse. The recruitment logs list agents named in recruitment files, while the network database, maintained on magnetic tape from the 1970s onward, records personal details and code names.
A fourth category, the “B” recruitment files, must be published by February 25. These contain detailed accounts of agents’ careers from the perspective of their case officers.
Prime Minister Péter Magyar said documents concerning the communist-era III/I foreign intelligence branch would not be released.
Hungarian national security interests remained connected to those records, he told a press conference, arguing that publication could cause “very major international and other problems” for the country.
Regarding the records being disclosed, Magyar emphasized that primary responsibility lay with those who created and operated the state security system: the party leaders of the Rákosi and Kádár regimes, service chiefs who organized surveillance, and case officers who recruited informants through blackmail, payment or threats.
“The Hungarian state is handing over to Hungarian society the information over which it exercised exclusive control for decades,” Magyar said, encouraging people to explore their own and their families’ histories.
Magyar described uncovering the state security past as essential to building a democratic Hungary.
“Without uncovering the past of the state security services, a democratic, functioning and free Hungary cannot be built; this was already apparent at the time of the 1990 regime change,” he said.
He accused political forces that entered government after the transition of failing to fulfill commitments to open the files and conduct a comprehensive investigation.
“The elite that brought about the change of regime let the people down, just as the political elite governing between 2010 and 2026 did,” Magyar said.
He placed the greatest responsibility on the former Fidesz-Christian Democratic governments, saying they had rejected proposals to publish the documents on 25 occasions between 2010 and 2026.
Zoltán Tarr, the minister for social relations and culture, said the disclosure addressed a serious historical omission and would allow society to confront traumas that continued to shape people’s lives.
“The intention is to uncover and come to terms with the past, and to reach a point where we can make peace with one another, with ourselves, and with our community’s past and present,” he said.
Tarr argued that the incomplete disclosure of state security information over previous decades, coupled with a lack of established practices for interpreting it, had allowed the records to become instruments of political conflict.
Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony also welcomed the publication, writing on Facebook that the country could make peace with itself only by embracing the truth.
“Today we came closer to being not only the heirs, but also the processors of our own history,” he said. “Because this nation, too, can only make peace with itself by embracing the truth.”
Karácsony acknowledged that confronting the records would be shocking for many families, revealing personal experiences of dictatorship, power, courage, fear and cowardice beyond what could be learned at school. He also urged recognition of those who had campaigned for years to secure public access.
János Bóka, leader of the opposition Fidesz parliamentary group, criticized the government’s approach, arguing that publishing tens of thousands of documents “taken out of context and without any analysis, does not bring us any closer to understanding and coming to terms with our past.”
In a Facebook post, Bóka accused Tisza of using the disclosure to stir unrest, divide society and distract attention from the country’s problems.
He said Fidesz had been founded to overthrow communist authoritarian rule and that its members and supporters had faced surveillance, intimidation and imprisonment.
“We will never know exactly who collaborated with the communist regime, why, or how, many of those involved are no longer alive, and some of the documents have disappeared, been destroyed, or remain classified to this day,” Bóka said.
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