Last month, the EKRE MP, Varro Vooglaid, submitted a complaint to the Data Protection Inspectorate (AKI) calling multiple times for the release of the original Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) photos to him.

While he received them, Vooglaid says his face was obscured after the fact.

The AKI says the facts of the matter are being investigated, but in any case the use of license plate recognition cameras was halted in May, by order of the interior minister, and the retention period of the photos in Vooglaid's case has elapsed since then.

"The specific circumstances of the complaint are still being clarified and a position formed. But broadly speaking, since the use of number recognition cameras was stopped in May, and since at most those recordings could be retained for three months, then by today three months have passed and they should have been deleted," AKI lawyer Agnes Järvela said.

PPA data protection specialist Mari Käärik said much the same thing, noting: "As of today, we no longer have those number recognition camera photos, as the retention period has expired," referring to the Vooglaid photos.

The PPA said it has processed the photos to obscure the faces, and therefore visual identity, of the driver.

As for Vooglaid's claim that ANPR cameras must be flagged publicly in terms of location and function, Käärik said that while surveillance cameras in general are indeed made public, number recognition cameras are not.

Käärik explained this further in terms of lack of evidence not being evidence of a lack.

"It is not publicly specified with which public space camera there is a number recognition function. Which means that, when entering the camera's field of view, one can assume that there may be a number recognition camera. But the exact locations, those we have not disclosed in order to protect PPA methods and tactics," he said, adding that specific cameras can recognize license plate numbers and which cannot can be subject to change over time.

With the Vooglaid case, the PPA is awaiting an AKI judgement due within 30 days. The deadline can be extended if needed.

Vooglaid said the situation had become too much of a complex saga, noting that in his opinion, an MP communicating with the PPA in this way is "simply silly."

"Instead of cooperating normally, releasing the information which they are obliged to release and which I have the right to request, they begin to string things along for months on end," he said.

Vooglaid said he was requesting information as a publicly elected figure which related to work, to establish "whether in fact only the number is identifiable or also individuals are identifiable."

Overall the PPA has received 50 queries similar to Vooglaid's where individuals are asking to what extent their vehicle has been recorded by ANPR cameras.

Vooglaid had originally requested the same and received initially two photos, from the PPA's POLIS database.

On pushing the issue, the MP was sent the outstanding balance of photos, 95 in total, but these had been processed to obscure facial identity.

Vooglaid found this nonsensical in that the photos were for his eyes only. "There is no reason to put little boxes over me as the driver, because there is no reason to protect my personal data from myself," he said.

Vooglaid says his assumption is that the PPA claim - that in the normal run of things, the driver of a vehicle would not be recognizable from an image taken by an ANPR camera – is false, but also unfalsifiable with the processing noted.

The PPA itself says it is guided by data protection rules which require protecting the personal data of third parties, for instance if the owner of a vehicle had granted permission for another individual to drive it.

Käärik said: "Furthermore the location of the vehicle at a specific moment in time can be personal data precisely because the owner of the vehicle must know to whom he has given his vehicle to use at a certain moment."

"The PPA has the obligation to protect the privacy of those third persons, by obscuring all information on the basis of which they could directly or indirectly be identified by the vehicle owner," she went on.

The PPA's example here was a family dispute in which the owner wanted to know who had driven or been a passenger in his or her vehicle, when, where, and other circumstances — to leave faces unobscured would violate such persons' privacy, the PPA said.

The inference here is that people inside a vehicle snapped by an ANPR camera could be facially identifiable from the photos.

"In fact, depending on the camera's location, its height; also the weather conditions, individuals in the vehicle may end up in the image. Yes, in such a case, a person may be identifiable through a particular camera," Käärik conceded.

Media reports emerged in April that the PPA had been operating a clandestine ANPR camera network for over a decade — capturing over 20 million vehicle images monthly — but lacked sufficient legal basis to do so. The practice had not been disclosed publicly either. Interior Minister Igor Taro (Eesti 200) initially defended the cameras' use, but backed down in May. ANPR cameras have reportedly not been used in Estonia since then.

A bill is under preparation which would if it passes a Riigikogu vote outlaw the use of ANPR cameras.

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