Helsinki Wants to Use Personal Data on Behalf of Citizens, But On Their Terms

Helsinki wants to be the top city in the world in utilizing digitalization.

The Finland city is creating personal digital services together with citizens that are based on the life situations of individuals with help from Vastuu Group, a Finnish company that develops services based on personal data.

The solutions make knowledge transfer between technology, processes, and people effortless, secure, and based on individual’s consent, according to an announcement.

“In the future, we want to target the city services in a predictive way that calls for the utilization of analytics and data. Trust is in the essence of data usage: the citizens need to be to trust that the city is using data on their behalf and with their consent so that it benefits both, the citizens and the city. This is what MyData is basically about”, says the Mayor of Helsinki, Jan Vapaavuori.

MyData services give the citizens ability to manage and benefit from the information the city collects about them. Helsinki holds various types of citizen data which is gathered, for example, from services the citizens use.

Helsinki wants to be clear about the data that is gathered, what data is collected and what it is used for. In addition, an individual can see if their data is shared between different services inside the city or between organizations for another city. The same principle allows the individual to deny the use of their data.

Listen: My TechDecisions Podcast Episode 117: Zero Trust Misconceptions

The personal information will also be decentralized in order to minimize the risk of information breaches. Vastuu Group’s MyData solutions enable the management and decentralization of personal data and other information gathered from individuals in a way that information moves between parties without unnecessary copies.

Data collection is often cited as a modern evil, but solutions like this which might stand to add efficiency while giving power to those whose data is collected may be a decent workaround.

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