Lithuanian opposition pushes for parliamentary inquiry into stolen registry data
Tuesday 9th June 2026 on 10:15 in
Lithuania
A temporary parliamentary investigative commission should examine political accountability for the theft of data from Lithuania’s Centre of Registers (RC), opposition leader Laurynas Kasčiūnas said Tuesday, according to LRT.
Kasčiūnas, chairman of the conservative Homeland Union, argued that the government’s failure to promptly inform the public about the breach—despite EU regulations requiring notification within 72 hours—constitutes a violation of human rights. “The protection of our data and attempts to steal or extract it, along with the inability to safeguard it, is a violation of all our human rights,” he told reporters in the Seimas. “We must investigate who is responsible.”
The proposed commission would focus on political rather than legal accountability, Kasčiūnas said, raising questions such as whether officials deliberately withheld information from the public for over a month. “Was there an attempt to conceal this? These are very important questions,” he added.
Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen, leader of the Liberal Movement, also stressed the need to determine political responsibility for the theft of 600,000 data entries. “We see the coalition changing, and some people may no longer be in government,” she said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that politicians who knew about this early failed to warn citizens of the danger.”
Čmilytė-Nielsen called it a “bad precedent” if the scandal were ignored, noting that even former coalition partners—now potential supporters of the inquiry—had previously opposed it. “It would be strange if they changed their minds now,” she said.
The political shift follows the Social Democrats’ weekend announcement that they are ending their coalition with the “Nemuno Aušra” party and beginning talks with the Democratic Union “For Lithuania.” Kasčiūnas expressed hope that the Democrats would uphold their earlier support for the inquiry, while the role of “Nemuno Aušra” lawmakers could prove decisive in the upcoming vote.
If established, the commission would be tasked with answering 19 questions, primarily concerning state registry controls, security, and the timeline of the incident.