Agent files: mostly the names of pub owners, bus drivers, railway workers, and farmers may be made public today

On Wednesday, the Historical Archives of State Security Services will publicly release the names of tens of thousands of former agents. The documents available include various types of state security records from before 1990, such as identification cards and recruitment logs. The first three document types will be accessible on the open database, allowing searches by personal data and aliases. The fourth type, detailed agent dossiers, will be released by February 25. Estimates suggest that around 150,000 agents were employed during the Rákosi and Kádár regimes, but only a third of their names are known. The released names primarily belong to ordinary individuals like bartenders and bus drivers.