Digital Identification and Online Public Services in Finland

Suomi.fi e-Identification is a common strong-authentication layer used by public e-services. MyTax, Kela, municipalities and other services run their own transactions; Suomi.fi verifies identity and passes the user to the relevant service.

Being able to identify through Suomi.fi does not automatically mean you are authorised to complete every transaction in every service. Each e-service applies its own eligibility, role and authorisation rules.

Suomi.fi e-Identification supports Finnish online banking credentials, mobile certificates, certificate cards and other approved strong-identification methods. Which token is available to you depends on the bank, telecom provider and identity-verification requirements.

A bank account and bank identification credentials are not the same service. A payment account can exist while strong identification requires a separate assessment, so ask specifically which identification service has been activated.

Finnish Authenticator is intended for foreign users who do not have Finnish identification tokens and need access to supported public e-services. Activation requires a foreigner's identifier (UID) and identity verification in the app using an accepted identity document.

Not every e-service accepts Finnish Authenticator. Suomi.fi instructs foreign users to check whether the particular e-service supports this method before relying on it.

Identification answers 'who are you?', while e-Authorizations answers 'on whose behalf and for which matter may you act?'. A mandate theme can authorise an accountant, adviser, family member or another party for specified transactions.

A mandate does not automatically operate like a universal power of attorney across all digital services. Each e-service decides which mandate themes or Trade Register roles it accepts.

A mandate granted in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations is an electronic power of attorney: its details are entered in the authorisation register, and the digital services of organisations such as the Tax Administration's MyTax, Kela and Finnish Customs read from that register whether the right exists. A mandate is not always needed, because those same services also check rights in the Population Information System and in the registers of the Finnish Patent and Registration Office. The detail that matters is that each e-service decides for itself which roles authorise representation and what kinds of mandate it accepts, so a right that works in MyTax may simply not appear in another service, and that is not a fault.

Know from the start what a mandate cannot do. You cannot create a power of attorney in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations, print it, and take it to a service point: the mandates granted are only for use in e-services and at pharmacies. You always log in as yourself and then choose the role you are acting in. A foreigner who signs in with the Finnish Authenticator app and has no Finnish credentials can only act as themselves, which means granting a mandate or acting for someone else on the strength of one is not possible by that route. Suomi.fi's activity history shows who has acted on your behalf and in which service; companies and associations cannot yet see in that history whether a service was used on their behalf.

Trade Register roles such as board membership, managing director or representation rights can allow a person to act for a company in some e-services without a separate mandate. Each e-service decides which roles it accepts.

If an accountant or employee does not have an eligible register role, the company can grant the necessary Suomi.fi mandate. Granting only the mandate themes actually required provides better access control.

Acting for a company without a separate mandate needs two things at once: a role entered in the Trade Register or the Business Information System that entitles the holder to represent the company, and that role also being one the particular service accepts. The roles in the register that can carry a right to represent include Accountant, Building Manager, Full-time Building Manager, Chairman of the Board, Member of the Board, Managing Director, Substitute Managing Director, Deputy Managing Director, General Partner, Liquidator, Procuration holder and Trader, and in addition any other signatory whose right to represent the company alone has been entered in the register.

Even with the right role, the transaction is blocked in three situations. If the person's status data in the register is something other than normal — a business prohibition, for example — they cannot act for the company. If the company's own register status is bankruptcy or liquidation, the same applies. The third is the trap foreign founders of Finnish companies hit most often: even when a person appears in the register with the right to represent the company, transactions are not possible if they have no personal identity code in the Trade Register. Personal identity codes have been notified to and entered in the Trade Register since 1 January 1994. So when you set a company up, verify separately that the director's personal identity code actually reached the register; the Finnish Authenticator does not solve it, because that route only lets you act as yourself. One last detail: a trader's Business ID stays permanently linked to the person and keeps appearing in e-services even after the business has ceased.

Banks and authorities do not need you to disclose full credentials or approve an unknown authentication request because of an unsolicited message. Opening services through the official app or a known address rather than random message links reduces phishing risk.

When using a shared device, log out and do not leave credentials stored in the browser. When changing phone number or device, update mobile-certificate, authenticator and recovery settings in a controlled way.