Citizen Certificate and electronic identity

You can apply to the police or a Finnish consulate abroad for an ID card.

You can make your application to the police as an e-service or by paying a personal visit to a police permit service point. The ID card will be sent to a pick-up point you choose yourself. The applicant’s identity is checked when a personal visit is paid by means of a valid passport or identity card issued by a Finnish authority. If you do not have either of these, a recently expired passport or identity card is acceptable unless you are told otherwise. Strong electronic authentication is needed to access e-services.

You can apply for an ID card abroad by paying a personal visit to a Finnish consulate that issues the cards. Subject to certain conditions, an ID card can be applied for from somewhere abroad using the Finnish police e-services. Further information is available from the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs web page containing information on passport and ID card applications abroad.

The Population Register Centre creates an electronic identity for Finnish citizens when issuing them with a personal identity code. An electronic Unique Identification Number (SATU) is used as electronic user identification in secure online transactions. It is a dataset consisting of a series of numbers and a check character that helps identify Finnish citizens and, under the Act on the Municipality of Residence Act, foreign citizens permanently residing in Finland whose details are entered in the Population Information System. The electronic client identifier is activated when a person receives a certificate card utilising the Population Register Centre's Citizen Certificate, for instance an ID card.

The electronic client identifier is a sequential serial number. It differs from personal identifiers, in that it does not provide information on its holder (e.g. date of birth).

The chip in an ID card contains the following information:

• the card holder’s personal certificates (Citizen Certificate)
• the card holder’s personal private keys
• the Digital and Population Data Services Agency’s CA certificates.

The Citizen Certificate contains the following information:

• forename and surname
• the electronic Unique Identification Number (SATU)
• the email address the applicant supplied
• the periods of validity of the certificates
• details of the certificate issuing country (Finland)
• the certificate holder’s public keys
• the details of the Digital and Population Data Services Agency, which signs the certificates (name, CA’s signatures)

The chip in the card and the Citizen Certificate do not contain information on personal identity (ID code), date of birth or home address.

If you lose an ID card or one is stolen, inform the police. You can file a report with the police using an electronic crime report form or by visiting a police station. Such reports abroad can be made to a Finnish consulate.

You can ask the police or an official at a consulate abroad to invalidate a card and revoke the certificates on it. You can also revoke a certificate yourself by informing the revocation service. The revocation service is available 24/7 every day of the week. Once the card has been reported and put on the revocation list, the card holder is no longer responsible for the use of its certificates.

If later on you find your lost card, please note that a revoked Citizen Certificate can no longer be used for purposes of identification in online services, and that a card reported lost no longer serves as proof of identity.

The card is not sent in the post to a home address, but is collected from a pick-up point. You will receive a notification when the card is ready to be picked up. The notification will come as a text message, by email or by letter in the way you chose when you submitted the application. If no notification comes, you can check with the police permit service or Finnish consulate abroad to see if there is something wrong with the order.

Yes. The information on the surface of the card or on the chip cannot be changed. If your name has changed and your ID card shows out-of-date information, it cannot serve as a travel document or proof of identity.

No. An examination of the card microchip will not reveal the services it has been used to access, or the services to which access rights have been specified for the card.

When your personal ID card expires, the certificates contained on the chip also expire (authentication, encryption and signature certificates), and they may no longer be used for e-services.

Certificates also expire automatically if you apply for a new ID card before your old one expires.

Please note that the encrypted data certificates on an old ID card cannot be accessed with the certificates on a new one. The old card has to be used to access it.

This is how to invalidate your old card:

• If you need the certificates on the old card to process encrypted data, cut a piece out of the photograph in the corner of the ID card but leave the chip intact.
• If you do not need the certificates on the old card to process encrypted data, you can destroy the expired card by cutting through the area where the chip is.