Do Estonian courts and AKI agree on retaining settled-debt information?

Short answer

Broadly yes in method, but the available materials do not establish a rule that every settled debt may—or must—remain visible for a fixed period. They apply a contextual balance between the purpose and necessity of publication and the effect on the debtor.

The apparent difference in outcomes is explained by materially different facts and procedures:

• In Tallinn Circuit Court case 3-23-2208/27, the court refused interim relief concerning a recently paid default. The underlying claim was not disputed, the individual had four other concluded defaults, and the evidence did not establish a concrete loan process in which this particular entry would be decisive.
• In AKI order 2.1.-1/23/1323-3299, the authority ordered publication to stop and the record to be deleted. Only €34.68 in ancillary claims remained after the €40 principal had been paid; it was the individual's only displayed default, it had been shown for more than a year, and the creditor had not tried to recover it in court.
• AKI's general payment-default guidance treats five years after payment or expiry as an outer limit, not an automatic entitlement. The appropriate period depends on the amount, other defaults and circumstances concerning the debtor and creditor.

The court decision needs an important caveat: it is an interlocutory order about emergency protection, not a final judgment that continued publication was lawful on the merits. It therefore supplies limited support for a retention policy.

Whose interest is being considered?

The sources distinguish interests that can easily be collapsed into a single “creditor interest”:

1. The creditor's own commercial interest, including recovery of the debt.
2. The register operator's interest in providing a useful credit-information service.
3. The interest of prospective lenders and other transaction partners in assessing payment behaviour and avoiding bad transactions.
4. The debtor's rights, including data protection, privacy and the ability to obtain housing, employment and essential services on fair terms.

AKI's guidance says that a creditor may transmit debt-related information to a payment-default register on the basis of legitimate interests under GDPR Article 6(1)(f). That requires identifying the legitimate interest, testing whether the processing is necessary, and balancing it against the debtor's rights and freedoms. The guidance recognises protection of others from bad transactions as a weighty interest, but it also requires the controller to prevent excessive harm.

This does not mean that publication may be used as a substitute for debt recovery. The 2024 AKI order draws a sharp line between using data to assess creditworthiness and using the reputational consequences of a register entry to pressure someone to pay.

What did the court actually decide?

Case 3-23-2208/27 arose after Swedbank reported a payment default of approximately €218 to a register operated by Creditinfo Eesti AS in April 2023. The debtor paid after publication and challenged AKI's decision to end its supervisory proceeding. During the ensuing administrative case, the debtor sought interim relief requiring immediate removal from databases and registers.

Tallinn Circuit Court dismissed the interlocutory appeal against the refusal of interim relief. Under the Code of Administrative Court Procedure, that required the court to consider whether protection of the claimant's rights would otherwise become materially more difficult or impossible, alongside the public interest, affected persons' rights, the prospects of the claim and the expected consequences of relief.

The court relied on several case-specific points:

• the existence of the debt and underlying claim was not disputed;
• the default was recent and had been paid only after publication;
• the claimant had four other concluded defaults still shown in the register;
• removing the disputed entry would therefore not remove the other negative entries;
• a payment-default entry may affect a credit decision, but a lender must assess a collection of factors under §49 of the Creditors and Credit Intermediaries Act;
• the documents did not establish a current, concrete credit process in which this particular entry would be determinative; and
• the facts differed from the other AKI proceeding invoked by the claimant.

The court found no basis, on the material then before it, to conclude that AKI had been required to order immediate removal. It left the lower court's refusal of interim relief unchanged.

That holding is narrower than a final merits ruling. The court did not decide that a creditor or register has an unconditional right to retain every paid default. Nor did it approve publication for the statutory maximum of five years. Indeed, the decision records AKI's position that five years is not automatic and that the balance may change when other defaults disappear, no new defaults arise or other circumstances evolve.

Why did AKI order deletion in the other case?

AKI order 2.1.-1/23/1323-3299 concerned a parking-related claim. The principal amount of €40 was paid during the supervisory proceeding. The register continued displaying €34.68 in ancillary claims.

The register argued that publication served creditworthiness assessment, credit scoring, disclosure of relationships and monitoring. It also argued that neither a single default nor a small amount was automatically excessive and that the ancillary amount remained due.

AKI accepted the need for a case-specific assessment but rejected continued publication on these facts. Its reasoning included the following:

• even for one small debt, the controller must show how publication serves creditworthiness assessment or a similar statutory purpose;
• a single sub-€100 ancillary claim did not demonstrate persistent adverse payment behaviour or poor solvency;
• the creditor had not sought judicial recovery;
• publication appeared to operate as economically advantageous payment pressure;
• a register entry affects more than lending and can influence employment, housing and access to services;
• it was the individual's only displayed default;
• the information had been published for more than a year; and
• the principal had already been paid.

AKI held that the controller's and register users' interests did not outweigh the individual's rights. It ordered publication to stop and the data to be deleted by 5 June 2024, backed by a €25,000 coercive-payment warning for non-compliance.

The order does not say that all debts below €100 are legally irrelevant in every context. Its stated position addresses the combined situation in which the entry was the individual's only default and the total claim fell below €100. The order also relies on the ancillary nature of the remaining sum, lack of recovery effort, passage of time, absence of other defaults and the individual's demonstrated harm.

Are the approaches consistent?

The sources are consistent on five central propositions:

There is therefore no demonstrated doctrinal conflict between the two outcomes. The court reviewed the need for emergency relief on one evidentiary record; AKI made a binding supervisory order on a different record after detailed proportionality analysis.

The materials also show why a compliance policy should not convert examples into rigid shortcuts. “Paid” is not an automatic deletion rule, but “within five years” is not an automatic retention rule. A record must continue to be accurate, necessary, relevant and proportionate for a permitted purpose.

What should a creditor or register document after settlement?

A defensible reassessment should distinguish the original debt from the continuing publication and record at least:

• when the breach began and ended;
• whether principal, interest, fees or other ancillary claims remain;
• whether the amount or legal basis is disputed;
• the amount and seriousness of the breach;
• whether this is an isolated event or part of a wider payment pattern;
• how recently the event occurred;
• what the creditor did to recover any amount still due;
• the specific creditworthiness or similar purpose served by continued display;
• why that purpose cannot reasonably be met with less intrusive data or a shorter period;
• the practical effect on the individual, including effects beyond lending;
• whether notice and transparency duties were met; and
• the result of any renewed assessment following an objection.

The assessment must be current. AKI's guidance says an individual may object at any time, after which the register must conduct a new legitimate-interest assessment and explain why publication remains lawful and not excessively harmful.

Limits of the available evidence

The comparison supports a conclusion about analytical method, not a universal retention schedule.

• The published circuit-court record concerns interim relief and does not reveal the final merits result of the underlying administrative case.
• AKI's order concerns a particularly small, isolated and partly settled claim; its result should not be detached from those facts.
• Neither source establishes that the creditor's desire to collect an outstanding amount is itself a permitted purpose for register publication.
• The legal effect of any particular retention depends on the version of the law, the record's accuracy, the recipient and purpose, the controller's evidence and the individual's circumstances.

MCP and source audit findings

The production audit used the configured Pro bypass token and consumed the seven-call cap: one court-case Discover, one exact court Search, one combined AKI Search, two exact Fetches, one exact guidance Search and one exact guidance Fetch. Every call was accepted and charged zero. The complete court order, AKI order and guidance were then verified through their exact authenticated Legalcode download URLs.

The AKI decision now exposes governmentAction: COMPLIANCE_ORDER, remedyOrOrder: COMPLIANCE_ORDER and sanctionType: COMPLIANCE_ORDER, WARNING. That confirms the production repair recorded in closed issue #659; it is not being re-reported.

The court record, however, omits structured procedural-posture and outcome fields even though its operative text clearly identifies an interlocutory appeal concerning interim relief and dismisses that appeal. Issue #666 requests source-wide auditing and repair. The omission matters here because it makes a preliminary procedural ruling look more like a final merits decision than it is.

Conclusion

Published Estonian court and AKI materials take a broadly consistent, fact-sensitive approach to continued display after settlement. They recognise legitimate interests in creditworthiness information and transaction security, but they do not treat settlement as irrelevant or the five-year statutory boundary as an automatic publication period.

The divergent results reflect different records. Emergency removal was refused where the debt was recent, undisputed, accompanied by four other defaults and not shown to determine a concrete loan decision. Deletion was ordered where only a small ancillary claim remained, it was the sole displayed default, the principal had been paid, recovery efforts were absent and publication had become disproportionate pressure.

For policy purposes, the safest synthesis is simple: reassess after payment, distinguish creditworthiness from collection, document necessity and proportionality, and never cite the interim order as a final judicial approval of routine five-year retention.

Sources and audit issue

• Tallinn Circuit Court, case 3-23-2208/27
• AKI order 2.1.-1/23/1323-3299
• AKI guidance: Maksehäired
• Current Personal Data Protection Act, §10
• Current Creditors and Credit Intermediaries Act, §49
• Legalcode issue #666: missing court posture and outcome metadata