The Finnish Police Federation has called for the criminalisation of the use of personal information and images in smear campaigns against serving officers, according to the news consortium Lännen Media.
The police union said that hate and harassment campaigns are threatening to endanger police operations in Finland. According to the union the state has a duty to protect serving police officers from such activities.
The National Police Board has said that it would expand criminalisation to include hate speech directed at public officials such as prosecutors and judges.
Legislation currently being drafted would make it a criminal offence to use police officers’ personal information and photographs for the purpose of harassment.
A similar law is already on the books in Spain, where the dissemination of private information about public officials, police and people working in the security services can attract fines of between 30,000 and 600,000 euros.