Service for certificates from the Population Information System supplemented by new legislation

The Digital and Population Data Services Agency uses an automated procedure for ordering certificates from the Population Information System. The service is now being supplemented by new legislative requirements, which means that people will be able to independently learn about implementation decisions and the criteria of the automated decision-making procedure.

Another new possibility is using self-service to order a certificate of the examination of impediments to marriage if a person wants to get married in Finland or another Nordic country.

This decision is an extension of the Digital and Population Data Services Agency’s automated administrative decision-making, which has previously been available for services such as changing your first name. Automated decision-making means that the process does not involve human input, and the decision is made by automated data processing instead.

Automated decision-making procedure speeds up services

Automated decision-making speeds up the resolution of matters and improves efficiency at the Digital and Population Data Services Agency because it allows experts to focus on processing applications that require human discretion. Producing certificates is also cheapest with self-service.

The automatic procedure is used when a certificate and possible attachment documents are ordered from the Population Information System with the dedicated service and paid during the same process. The fee is determined automatically based on the selections made by the service user. The certificate is delivered as an electronic PDF document when the user orders it for a Finnish operator or the EU Commission or Parliament. At the moment, 60% of all issued certificates are ordered through self-service. 

According to law, automatic decision-making can be used in situations where the matter does not involve case-by-case consideration and is decided on the basis of information from resources such as the Population Information System. The automated decision-making has to be based on pre-established rules which, among other things, ensure that the decision-making procedure does not discriminate against anyone.

The general legislation on automatic decision-making entered into force on 1 May 2023.