Estonia's Ministry of Finance announces government approval of bill clarifying bank data requests through the enforcement register without new access rights

Estonia's Ministry of Finance announced that the government has approved legislative amendments setting clear, auditable rules for requesting bank data through the enforcement register for tax fraud and anti-money laundering work. The changes do not give the Tax and Customs Board or the Financial Intelligence Unit any new powers to obtain data covered by bank secrecy, but explicitly allow existing powers to be used through the enforcement register as a secure, logged channel. The move follows an assessment by the Chancellor of Justice that the state's access to bank data was not regulated clearly enough in law. The bill specifies in which cases data may be requested, what data may be requested and through which channels, and requires every request to be justified and logged for later review. For the Tax and Customs Board, it clarifies that bank data may be requested in tax proceedings if the authority has not obtained the information from the data subject. For the Financial Intelligence Unit, bank account inquiries remain part of operational analysis of suspected money laundering, and the person concerned must be notified after five years unless that would hinder the detection or prevention of a crime or harm the rights and freedoms of others.