RIGA, Oct. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Latvian Supreme Court on Friday sentenced Ivars Poikans, an IT professional and researcher at the University of Latvia, to 60 hours of community service for hacking into the Latvian tax authority's computers and stealing classified data, local media reported.
The Supreme Court upheld a previous ruling, delivered by Riga Regional Court on Jan. 17, in a lengthy court dispute in which Poikans insisted on his moral rights to leak data on well-paid public servants' salaries to the public.
The court said in its ruling that Poikans violated law by accessing the Latvian State Revenue Service's electronic information system without the necessary authorization and using its data for unlawful purposes.
In November 2015, Riga Regional Court ordered Poikans to do community service for hacking into the Revenue Service's computers and stealing classified data.
The case dates back to 2010 when Poikans, under the nickname Neo, used a security hole in the Latvian State Revenue Service's electronic declaration system to gain access to its files and leak classified data, notably tax records of various civil servants and state officials, to the media.
