Let's start with something a bit more general regarding the Ministry of the Interior's current approach to handling this issue. What's your impression? Have they recognized their mistakes or missteps — has the reality of the situation sunk in? Or are the recent responses, including turning off the cameras, more a reaction to the public backlash?

First of all, I want to commend Minister of the Interior Igor Taro (Eesti 200) for having the courage to make a decision that may seem somewhat unfair in the eyes of public opinion and for following the chancellor of justice's guidance. Credit to the minister for not being swayed by officials' sweet talk about how important and lawful all of this is.

But let me go back in time a bit. When I served as chancellor of justice from 2002 to 2007, I stood before the Riigikogu and pointed out exactly these same issues.

Police activities involving surveillance equipment must be regulated with extreme precision. What I see here is a cultural problem — we're dealing with the exact same issues in 2025. The technology has advanced, but we're still talking about the same core problems. Public pressure deserves recognition here — the media, various opinion leaders and legal experts who have kept this topic in the spotlight.

Right now, the issue is at a stage where a legal basis is being established for license plate recognition or other forms of surveillance. The debate isn't about whether cameras should be used or not. The real question is that using cameras must be backed by a very clear legal authorization. And the law must specify the purpose for collecting this data: is it for penalizing traffic violations or just to passively scan the area in case something interesting turns up and then respond accordingly? That latter case is clearly unacceptable.

Secondly, there's the matter of how this data is stored and who has access to it. Can any police officer just log in, like on Facebook, and casually check where a car with Allar Jõks' license plate has been?

The third issue is how long the data is retained — is it kept for a month, a year or two?

If these questions haven't been clearly resolved, then the system is plainly unconstitutional.

Since you took us back twenty or more years, we've now arrived at a situation you described as a cultural issue. Could you elaborate on that idea a bit? What chain of events — or series of decisions and failures to decide — has brought us to the point where we're still facing the same problems? Who's holding the ball here?

I called it a question of legal culture because we have a constitution that clearly states all important matters must be decided by the legislature. And a key question here is: what are we collecting data for? It's not enough for the law to simply say that cameras may be used. As I mentioned, there are ten questions that need clear answers, and those questions must be decided by the Riigikogu.

But as we're seeing now, the Riigikogu was caught off guard. Many ministers — including the prime minister — were also surprised by this. That tells us these decisions are being made somewhere at the bureaucratic level, perhaps through a director general's internal directive.

Just yesterday, I came up with a comparison. I've been following the legal disputes surrounding Donald Trump in the U.S., where he often used presidential decrees to make dozens of decisions that really should be left to the U.S. legislature — Congress. But Trump just went ahead and did it, saying no one can stop him.

I realized it's quite similar here. What's happening with license plate recognition now is essentially a "Trump move." And that's why I say it's a cultural issue. What's deeply troubling is that a large part of the public — and even many members of the Riigikogu — believe that those who defend the constitution, like the chancellor of justice in this case, are actually defending criminals. As long as that mindset doesn't change, there won't be real public pressure to ensure surveillance mechanisms are properly and precisely regulated by law.

We're surrounded by all kinds of cameras these days. Right now, we're talking about the Police and Border Guard Board's license plate recognition cameras, but take Jõgeva as an example — just recently, some murderers were caught thanks to cameras that recorded the crime. Does this current legal gap or weakness apply to all types of cameras?

In this case, the debate is specifically about license plate recognition cameras, because it's not clear what the data is being collected for. It's claimed that the Law Enforcement Act provides the legal basis for using these cameras. The answer is no — it doesn't. Then some say the Traffic Act allows it. That might be true to an extent, but the purpose of the Traffic Act is to ensure traffic order, which is a completely different matter from collecting data "just in case."

As for whether cameras should be allowed at all — that's where we need to draw a clear distinction. One scenario is where the state sets up a centralized database to start collecting all sorts of information "just in case." Take that logic a bit too far and you could say domestic violence is a serious problem — so how should we solve it? Where should we put the cameras? Let's let our imaginations run wild.

In many cases, using cameras is perfectly legal. But in this particular case, there's no legal basis and we must remember the core principle: in private law, anything not prohibited is allowed, but the state can only act if it has a very clear, legally defined mandate.

And here we run into something I would call hypocrisy and unequal treatment. The state — through its agencies and inspectors — closely monitors citizens' behavior in various fields, whether it's data protection, taxes or traffic. If you make a mistake, you're penalized immediately. Yet now we're calmly watching as the state, without legal grounds, collects massive amounts of data — without knowing where it's coming from or who it's going to.

Aren't we just reinventing the wheel here? I'm referring to how justified this current domestic debate in Estonia really is — about cameras and even AI use in camera networks. The European Parliament, where Estonian representatives also serve, and the European Union as a whole, have already debated and decided on where and under what conditions surveillance camera footage can be used. Isn't that enough to resolve our situation as well?

EU law certainly doesn't lay out exactly how, under what circumstances or where cameras may be used. But the European Union does have very strong data protection and privacy regulations. The European Court of Justice issued a landmark ruling several years ago concerning the types of metadata held by mobile network operators — such as who called whom and where the caller was at the time. The court made it clear that this kind of data cannot be collected, stored or used "just in case." It can only be used for investigating extremely serious crimes.

This issue remains unresolved in Estonian law. We've been aware of these legal shortcomings for years, but we haven't addressed them. Life goes on and nothing changes.

I suspect that 20 years from now, different people will be sitting here discussing exactly the same issue — unless we fix it.

So what would be the first step to ensure the system is lawful?

In order for the system to be lawful, there must be a clear legal authorization or delegation clause stating the purpose for which the license plate recognition system may be used, who is allowed to use it, who has access to the data, who ensures there is no abuse or casual browsing out of curiosity and what the accountability mechanisms are. Because in reality, unlawful surveillance is a criminal offense. And this system does enable unlawful surveillance.

So right now, the ball is in the Riigikogu's court. It must amend the relevant laws — whether it's the Traffic Act or the Law Enforcement Act. And I'm glad the minister said they intend to start working on this, because there's another danger here. People say, "But we're saving lives! To hell with the constitution — we're saving lives!" Look, they'll say, we caught a rapist thanks to this system or prevented some other crime.

But we also know plenty of cases where a criminal case reaches court and the first question is: Where did you get this evidence? Then comes the follow-up: Was there a legal basis for collecting it? If there wasn't, what happens to the case? It falls apart.

What's your personal sense of the matter? I'll quote the minister of the interior from Esimene stuudio: "Ten years ago, our expectations and understanding of data protection and legal regulation were completely different. Times change and so does society's perspective." In your view, how different is the situation compared to ten years ago? Have our expectations changed — and in which direction?

It's certainly true that technology has changed significantly over the past ten years. But that also means that as surveillance and data collection capabilities evolve, the law must keep pace. The legal framework that governed surveillance a decade ago is no longer sufficient today. As technology advances, so must the law.

I'd also point out that the chancellor of justice issued a memorandum a year ago highlighting these very same concerns — so the chancellor, too, is keeping up with the times.

When I was chancellor of justice, the technology was at a different level, but the core issue was essentially the same: what can and cannot the police — or any oversight authority — legally do?

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