‍A, a Finnish citizen, had on 25 August 2015 travelled from Finland to the Republic of Estonia and back again aboard a pleasure boat. En route, A had traversed the international waters between Finland and Estonia. A had a valid Finnish passport, but he did not carry it with him on the trip. On the return trip, A underwent a border inspection in Helsinki and could not produce a passport or other travel document. However, A’s identity could be established on the basis of a driver’s license that A was carrying.

‍‍The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Australian Federal Police had co-operated in a sting operation, codenamed Trojan Shield, where the FBI had established a messaging platform called ANOM. The ANOM smartphone app could be used for sending messages to another phone running the same app, with the service being touted as being fully secure.

‍Company B had demanded that Internet Service Provider A be ordered, under section 60a of the Copyright Act, to disclose to B the subscriber information pertaining to 34 accounts specified by way of IP addresses, as these accounts had been used to make copyrighted material available to the public without authorisation and to an extent that was significant in terms of copyright protection

‍‍The public prosecutor brought charges against A, B, and C for a game offence and against D for a game offence as a young person. According to the charges, on 29 July 2017 the defendants had fished with rods, reels, and lures on the west bank of the Vetsijoki river between Bajitrochi and Vuolitluovosvárjohsuolu, that is, on state waters under the management of the Metsähallitus [State land and water management agency], without the requisite permit issued by the Metsähallitus.