The Levin law firm has sent an official request to the Ministry of the Interior to initiate the oversight proceedings which, Levin partner Keres said, relates to the authority often failing to inform those whose communications have been under surveillance of that fact.

"This is in direct violation of the law," Keres said.

"The result is that people who innocently have conversations with their close ones may find out that they have been wiretapped only during, for example, criminal proceedings — especially when there is major public interest," the lawyer went on.

He brought out as an example the Parvel Pruunsild case, where individuals had found out through the media that their conversations had been surveilled and recorded — though many of the conversations were not directly related to a criminal case.

"This is certainly relatively shocking behavior by the Internal Security Service," Keres added.

The problem is much broader than concerning only high-profile cases, the law firm claims, putting the numbers of people in Estonia being monitored without being aware of that in the thousands.

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