The Office for the Protection of the Constitution of Lower Saxony is the state authority for the protection of the constitution of Lower Saxony, based in Hanover. In organizational terms, it is Department 5 in the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior and Sport. Its tasks include the prevention of extremism and espionage, for which it also uses intelligence resources. To this end, it had almost 320 full-time staff units and almost 23 million euros at its disposal in 2019. The President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is Dirk Pejril..