The Secretary-General of Finnish Parliament has suspended a civil servant employee from their post during an investigation into suspected breach of duty and data protection violations, the Parliament's communications unit announced on Monday.
The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has opened a preliminary probe surrounding the civil servant, who worked at the Parliament's security department.
The probe stems from an internal audit about the handling of security clearance documents on more than 1,000 people that were processed from 2017 until January of this year.
The criminal suspicions emerged last year, according to Parliament's Secretary-General, Antti Pelttari, who took over the post this year.
He noted that Parliament's security clearance procedures had grown considerably. Security clearance checks are not carried out on MPs and ministers, but their assistants are subject to the process.
Civil servants, construction workers and subcontractors
Authorities suspect that the security department worker illegally recorded and stored personal data of people who were subject to the background checks.
Initial findings of the preliminary probe suggest that there is reason to believe that the data of more than 1,000 people were affected by the suspected crimes. The large number of people was due to an increase in visits to Parliament House, including a large number of civil servants, construction workers and their subcontractors.
According to NBI Senior Detective Superintendent Tomi Taskila, the preliminary investigation is expected to be completed in the spring.
The NBI said that there was no indication that the improperly stored data was used in a criminal or otherwise harmful manner.
Pelttari took over as Secretary-General of Parliament at the beginning of January after 12 years as Director of the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service (Supo).
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