According to PPA Director General Egert Belitšev, restoring the system will depend primarily on public trust in how the police handle data.

"We conducted an internal audit to ensure that we have used the data collected for its intended purpose, and have stored and deleted it as required," he said.

Belitšev said it's important that the criminal police regain access to LPR in criminal investigations as soon as possible, and that efforts are actively underway to make that happen.

"As part of the internal audit, we also highlighted which legal acts police have relied on when utilizing LPR," he continued. "We sent proposals to the Ministry of the Interior regarding how to more precisely regulate LPR, to ensure the purpose for collecting and using the data is clearly defined."

He noted that the police use the cameras to gain clarity in serious cases.

"This could mean solving drug crimes and car thefts, catching scammers' money mules, but also, for example, responding to a report of a possible suicide attempt," the director general explained. "In the past two weeks alone, there have already been several cases where the use of LPR would have led to a faster resolution or allowed us to help someone — or where it turned out to be impossible to verify the information."

The internal audit included a comprehensive analysis of how the automatic license plate recognition system is used within the PPA. In addition to legal grounds, the main focus of the audit was whether the data processing and oversight measures in place are compliant with current regulations.

The audit found several key positives: the use of LPR camera data is logged, the logs are available and they provide a clear overview of activities. The data has also been processed as intended — queries made regarding data collected via LPR have been justified and used primarily to investigate serious offenses.

Access to the collected data is limited to officials with a legitimate work-related need to use the system. The data is stored for a short period, and internal data deletion mechanisms are working as intended.

In its use of automatic license plate recognition, the PPA has followed the Police and Border Guard Act, the Law Enforcement Act and the POLIS statutes approved by the minister of the interior.

In a critical finding, the audit determined that since 2021, the PPA has had an internal procedure in place requiring a risk assessment before installing cameras. However the audit identified shortcomings in how these risk assessments are conducted and retained — the existing process has not always been consistently applied.

Following the audit, the PPA will update its current risk assessments and establish a systematic procedure for their retention and regular review.

It was also noted that the signage for cameras located in public spaces has been inconsistent — about one-third of the cameras lacked a video surveillance sign. The PPA promised to mark the cameras with proper signage, and proposed clarifying the law to ensure the rules for video surveillance signage are clear and consistent.

Upon reinstating the use of LPR, the PPA will change how justifications for queries are entered to speed up follow-up reviews based on the explanations provided. Regular random spot checks will be introduced as well, replacing the previous system of checks according to a risk-based approach, i.e. based on previously identified warning signs.

Until now, the principles governing the use of LPR have been regulated at the regulation level, and the purpose of data use has not been clearly defined. To ensure legal clarity, the PPA, together with the Ministry of the Interior, is drawing up proposals to promote the current regulation-level principles of usage to the legislative level, a PPA spokesperson said Tuesday.

The director general of the PPA launched the internal audit involving lpr on April 24.

In mid-May, Minister of the Interior Igor Taro (Eesti 200) suspended the use of the PPA's LPR cameras pending necessary legislative changes, taking into account concerns raised by a representative of the chancellor of justice and the Data Protection Inspectorate regarding the need for more precise legal regulations.

"It has become clear by now that the use of LPR cameras and the storage of the information obtained from them need to be more precisely and substantively regulated," Taro commented at the time. "In this situation, the precautionary principle regarding infringements on fundamental rights outweighs the principle of expediency."

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!