Police in Lieksa have launched a probe into the leaking of the personal banking information of a local Somali man (Image: Yle).
Wednesday, March 05, 2014
Police in Lieksa, eastern Finland, are investigating the illegal online disclosure of the private banking information of a Somali man. The documents were published on a blog site last year and allegedly belong to an immigrant man.
The documents illegally published online include details of personal bank transfers. Detective Chief Inspector Antti Arponen said that the request for an investigation came from the owner of the account.
“Account transfers are personal information, as well as the account information itself,” Arponen said, indicating that the unlawful disclosure of personal information online was reasonable cause for police action.
Police are investigating the case as invasion of privacy by distributing personal information, which can either draw a fine or a two-year prison sentence, if the perpetrator is found guilty.
Police are currently interviewing the parties to the case.
Same victim as previous case?
The information published online is thought to belong to a Somali man whose account information was also previously disclosed back in 2012.
At that time a man and woman from Lieksa were sentenced to a 40-day fine for invasion of privacy by the northern Karelia district court. Each ended up paying 240 euros in fines.
Lieksa had been in the news last December when a local Finns Party politician came under scrutiny for allegedly demanding a "whites only" meeting space in municipal premises. It emerged that the party did not want to convene in a space also used by a working group on Somali issues. The city council declined to offer new premises and the politician was later cleared of racism charges arising from the incident.