The Riigikogu's constitutional committee, special committee for oversight of security agencies, finance, and legal affairs committees all convened on Monday on an extraordinary basis, since the Riigikogu is on its summer recess, to address the issue.

Minister of Justice and Digital Affairs Liisa Pakosta has this week begun to restrict access to the relevant source, the enforcement register, to any agencies which did not specifically request permission for an exemption.

One of those agencies that has requested permission is the PPA, which argues its interest is wholly justified. PPA chief Egert Belitšev told "Aktuaalne kaamera" that, in the course of criminal cases, those whose banking data is being accessed should not be made aware of it.

"If we truly want to conduct criminal proceedings effectively, then before public actions, the person should often not be informed," Belitšev said.

For a very clear reason, in criminal proceedings, evidence forms a corpus, but if an individual finds out that legal authorities have discovered their potentially unlawful act, that evidence may later be destroyed," he went on.

The enforcement register statute finds that five state institutions submitted applications to continue making inquiries. In addition to the PPA and MTA, the institutions are: The Internal Security Service (ISS, also known by its Estonian acronym, Kapo), the Foreign Intelligence Service (Välisluureamet), and the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU).

If and when all specified requirements are met, these agencies will have the right to make inquiries regarding the following information: the existence of an account, its balance, bank statements, all persons authorized to access that account, the account owner's ultimate beneficial owner, and the existence of a safety deposit box.

Mari-Liis Mikli, deputy secretary general at the justice ministry, told "Aktuaalne kaamera" that these applications were needed to specify which legal obligation necessitated an agency's access to the system, what data that agency sought, and the legal basis for obtaining it.

"At the same time, it was our intention to see how agencies guarantee that each specific inquirer has a work-related justification and need to make bank inquiries, plus that there is a sufficient internal control system in place," Mikli said.

Meanwhile, Riigikogu security committee chair and former justice minister Maris Lauri (Reform) pointed out:

"It is one thing to ask whether an individual has a bank account, and possibly its balance and ownership details. It is another matter when account statements are requested — that is a sensitive issue which requires serious discussion and more precise regulation," Lauri said.

The PPA has been one of the most frequent accessors of data from the enforcement register, as flagged by a report by Chancellor of Justice Ülle Madise.

Belitšev said: "The inquiries cited in the Chancellor of Justice's report — that number reflects about 2200 criminal proceedings. This means inquiries are made to various financial institutions, resulting in a considerable number of queries per person during a criminal investigation — to determine where they have accounts and what those account details are."

Kilvar Kessler, Head of the Financial Supervision Authority (Finantsinspektsioon), also said that the new regulation must be established at the legislative level.

"The issue is about what transactions you are making and whether the state should have uncontrolled access to them. My answer is: it shouldn't. It must be case-by-case and well justified by the state," Kessler said.

Further complicating the situation, justice ministry secretary general Tiina Uudeberg said that clarifying whether the current legal norms are understood uniformly by everyone is needed, or whether "they need to be specified further."

Uudeberg added her ministry had not been directly tasked with changing the laws at Monday's meeting; Lauri recommended that ministries present their proposals within a couple of months.

Any legal amendments would primarily be down to the justice ministry and the finance ministry, Lauri said.

Ultimately, Lauri noted that while the public may now have the impression that officials are rifling through people's data on a mass scale, in reality, few bank account inquiries are made. Nonetheless, oversight measures are still necessary to build trust, both internally and externally, the Reform MP added.

The MTA's scope for making inquiries will be more limited going forward. It will retain the right to obtain information solely on the seizure status of a debtor's accounts and to carry out related actions. The MTA may no longer request information on account statements. As for the FIU, more discussion will be needed, Lauri said.

The Office of the Chancellor of Justice found, during an inspection, that authorities had access to account holders' banking information via the enforcement register without the requisite legal basis.

The Chancellor of Justice put the figure of state institutions having made banking inquiries over the span of just over a year in the tens of thousands.

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