CENTRUM FÖR RÄTTVISA v. SWEDEN JUDGMENT 21 (usually with the help of selectors) was one of the important stages for balancing personal integrity concerns against other interests. 70. According to the report, the two most significant safeguards were the authorisation process (of collection and access) and the oversight process. It was clear from the Court’s case-law that the latter must be performed by an independent, external body. While the Court had a preference for judicial authorisation, it had not found this to be a necessary requirement. Rather, the system had to be assessed as a whole, and where independent controls were absent at the authorisation stage, particularly strong safeguards had to exist at the oversight stage. In this regard, the Venice Commission considered the example of the system in the United States, where authorisation was given by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. However, it noted that despite the existence of judicial authorisation, the lack of independent oversight of the court’s conditions was problematic. 71. Similarly, the Commission observed that notification of the subject of surveillance was not an absolute requirement of Article 8 of the Convention. In this regard, a general complaints procedure to an independent oversight body could compensate for non-notification. 72. The report also considered internal controls to be a “primary safeguard”. In this regard, recruitment and training were key issues; in addition, it was important for the agencies to build in respect for privacy and other human rights when promulgating internal rules. 73. The report also considered the position of journalists. It accepted that they were a group which required special protection, since searching their contacts could reveal their sources (and the risk of discovery could be a powerful disincentive to whistle-blowers). Nevertheless, it considered there to be no absolute prohibition on searching the contacts of journalists, provided that there were very strong reasons for doing so. It acknowledged, however, that the journalistic profession was not one which was easily identified, since NGOs were also engaged in building public opinion and even bloggers could claim to be entitled to equivalent protections. 74. Finally, the report briefly considered the issue of intelligence sharing, and in particular the risk that States could thereby circumvent stronger domestic surveillance procedures or any legal limits which their agencies might be subject to as regards domestic intelligence operations. It considered that a suitable safeguard would be to provide that the bulk material transferred could only be searched if all the material requirements of a national search were fulfilled and this was duly authorised in the same way as a search of bulk material obtained by the signals intelligence agency using its own techniques.