Parliament Makes Another Attempt to Open KGB Archives

Lithuania’s parliament is facing another attempt to open KGB archives, this time through a rule that would separate protected information from the rest of a document. Arvydas Anušauskas, a member of the opposition Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats faction, registered revised amendments after receiving comments from the Seimas Legal Department.

The central principle is simple: if only part of a document requires protection, only that part should be restricted. The remaining material should remain available unless another law limits its use. The proposal would apply to information about people who admitted secretly collaborating with Soviet special services and were entered in the register of confessing collaborators. It would also cover information about people harmed by those services who requested that information about them remain restricted until their deaths.

Under the revised bill, archivists would have to provide access to the rest of a document by covering, removing or otherwise separating only the data whose use is legally restricted. The same approach would apply when a document contains information about a victim who requested lifetime protection for personal information.

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The purpose of the bill is to establish a clear principle of partial document access: when it contains legally restricted information, only the use of that information is restricted, while the remaining part of the document must be accessible if its use is not restricted by other laws.

“If one confessed KGB collaborator’s surname needs protection, that specific data should be protected, not the entire file,” Anušauskas said. “A historical document cannot become inaccessible simply because it contains one line protected by law. Personal-data protection must not turn into the classification of the entire history.”

Anušauskas said the special section of Lithuania’s National Documentary Fund contains a significant part of the country’s 20th-century documentary heritage, including records from the KGB, other Soviet security and intelligence institutions, and occupation authorities. He argued that access is important to historians, researchers, journalists and the public examining repression, persecution, resistance and cooperation with occupation structures. The amendments would require the government to establish procedures for providing KGB-related documents and copies, identifying restricted information, anonymizing it and separating it from publicly accessible material. The proposed rules would take effect on January 1, 2027, and custodians would have 12 months to review earlier access decisions.

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If one confessed KGB collaborator’s surname needs protection, that specific data should be protected, not the entire file. A historical document cannot become inaccessible simply because it contains one line protected by law. Personal-data protection must not turn into the classification of the entire history.