Important documents available wherever you go – do you already receive electronic post from the authorities?

Where is my new driving licence? Did my youngest one get a place in day care? Did I pass the entrance exam to higher education? Did the local authority ever reply to my question concerning ploughing snow on the streets? We citizens need to contact the authorities surprisingly often. Today, some of the official post is sent online, which is practical and saves a lot of money and paper.

Suomi.fi Messages is an electronic communication channel through which it is easy to contact several different authorities and public administration. You can do it in the evenings and at weekends, and even from your own sofa. If you do not particularly love queuing and office hours or do not like waiting for paper mail, flexible use of services will save your nerves. The service is part of the Population Register Centre’s steadily growing Suomi.fi Web Service. By logging into the service, you can activate Messages and will in future receive the mail sent by a number of authorities in electronic format instead of paper mail.

Web service saves money and files documents on your behalf

When you have activated Suomi.fi Messages, you will receive a notification of many decisions and other important official messages directly to your email. You will save time when you can start to read the messages straight away and reply to them. Traditional letters may take a week but when you use Suomi.fi Messages, at best you can take care of matters in one day.

In addition, you will accumulate an electronic folder in which important messages, certificates and notifications can be stored safely and are always available. If you download the Suomi.fi mobile application, you can access the messages even on your own phone. You will not have to look for them and there will not be a growing pile of urgent and non-urgent papers taking over your kitchen table, waiting to be sorted into different folders.

You do not need to worry about information security because Suomi.fi Messages always uses strong identification. Outsiders cannot access your messages or even see who you receive mail from. Everyday privacy is valuable.

And best of all, you can help nature and also save money by using electronic services. For example, if the residents of a city as large as Lahti received their tax relief forms electronically, about four thousand kilos of paper would be saved. And another calculation: if all the notifications of eligibility to vote in a city as large as Turku were sent electronically, going paperless would already save more than 100,000 euros in postage in the first elections.

Activate Suomi.fi Messages today

Suomi.fi Messages are easy to activate. You will find clear instructions for it in the Suomi.fi Web Service. Public Service Info will also provide advice. At the moment, more than 180 authorities already send electronic messages and 146 of them are municipalities. The list of participating organisations is getting longer.

Check here whether your local authority already uses Suomi.fi Messages. If it does not, be a pioneer and a well-informed resident: join the free service and give the decision-makers a hint that smooth communication means satisfied residents and that the money saved from postage could be used for something smarter. For example, for clearing snow from local streets more often.