Lawyer demands that Interior Ministry initiate oversight proceedings against KAPO over unlawful acquisition of email content
Lawyer Kristjan Tuul has asked the Interior Ministry to initiate oversight proceedings against KAPO, claiming the intelligence agency has repeatedly acquired the email content of individuals without a court order and without legal basis.
Lawyer demands that Interior Ministry initiate oversight proceedings against KAPO over unlawful acquisition of email content
On 8 June 2026, lawyer Kristjan Tuul submitted a request to the Interior Ministry to initiate oversight proceedings against the Security Police (KAPO), which operates under Estonia's Interior Ministry. The reason is an unlawful and systematic practice revealed through final court judgements, whereby investigating authorities have acquired email content from communications and service providers without legal basis and without requesting court orders.
Behind Tuul's application lies a criminal case spanning several years in which Toomas Tamm, Küllike Namm and Kalev Kangur were accused of fraud. Both the district court and circuit court ruled that the suspects were not guilty, and the Supreme Court largely confirmed the earlier decisions. During the investigation, KAPO obtained the contents of Tamm's email boxes from Telia, the service provider, covering the years 2015 to 2018.
The Supreme Court subsequently decided that investigating authorities do not have the right to demand a suspect's email box contents from a service provider during criminal proceedings, and such access is permitted only on the basis of a court order.
In Tuul's assessment, the problem is not limited to a single case, but there is reason to suspect that investigating authorities have used the same practice over a long period in other proceedings as well.
Tarmo Olgo, head of the Interior Ministry's Internal Audit Department, told ERR that the ministry conducted a thorough review of the request and concluded that it cannot initiate oversight proceedings. Olgo explained that the Interior Ministry is not the competent institution, nor is the minister the appropriate official to conduct such oversight, which aims to assess the legality of investigative measures carried out in specific criminal proceedings.
Olgo nevertheless acknowledged that the issue raised – to what extent communications secrecy and privacy can be violated in criminal proceedings – is undoubtedly important and touches on a significant public interest.
According to him, a separate procedure is established in criminal proceedings to review the legality of investigative measures, within which the prosecutor's office is the competent authority responsible for such oversight. Therefore, the assessment of the legality of the mentioned measures falls outside the Interior Ministry's competence, and the appropriate institution for resolving the issues raised is the prosecutor's office.
Olgo added that the ministry recommends that the matter described in the request be referred to the Office of the Prosecutor General, which has, among other things, the authority to assess whether the described practice was systematic and what measures should be taken to prevent its recurrence.
Source: ERR
Source: ERR News