Applying for or cancelling a non-disclosure for personal safety reasons
If you have a justified reason to suspect that the health or safety of yourself or your family is threatened, a non-disclosure for personal safety reasons can be recorded for you and your family in the Population Information System. You can also cancel a non-disclosure for personal safety.
The issuance of a non-disclosure for personal safety is an exceptional protection measure that restricts the disclosure of personal data such as your address and place and municipality of residence from the Population Information System. Only the authorities that have the right to process data subject to a non-disclosure will be able to access it. The non-disclosure does not cover any other person registers that may contain your address.
A person with justified and obvious grounds for suspecting that their own or their family's health or safety are threatened may apply for a non-disclosure order. Such situations include witness protection, domestic violence or working in a profession in which you are subject to a regular threat of serious physical violence.
In order to apply for a non-disclosure, you must submit a written application to the Digital and Population Data Services Agency, which includes clear reasoning and proof of a concrete threat to the applicant and how likely this threat is. Adults sign the application on their own behalf and the guardians jointly on behalf of under-age children. Documents proving a threat must be attached to the application.
A contact address can be recorded in the Population Information System for a non-disclosure client as the non-disclosure order does not apply to the contact address. A contact address will make it possible for others to contact a person who has a non-disclosure for personal safety in place. The contact address must not reveal the details of where the person lives (for example, a PO Box).
Do the following
- Complete the application with your reasons for needing a non-closure for personal safety and the likelihood of a threat.
- Attach documents to your application that show proof of the threat to your safety and submit the application and its attachments to the Digital and Population Data Services Agency.
- You can send the application by post or deliver it personally to a service location.
- If you choose to email your application, please use secure email.
- You can provide your contact address at Lomake.fi. A contact address can be for example a post box or a friend’s address. It should not reveal your whereabouts.
Checklist
- An application for a non-disclosure for personal safety must be submitted in writing.
- Obtain the necessary documents that verify the threat to your personal safety and attach these to your application.
- Check that you have signed the application and that you have obtained the required consents (for example, consent from the adults and the other guardians of under-age children listed in the same application).
Links to Acts related to the matter
Laki väestötietojärjestelmästä ja Digi- ja väestötietoviraston varmennepalveluista (in Finnish)
Frequently asked questions
You can apply for a non-disclosure for personal safety reasons to the Digital and Population Data Services Agency.
For us to be able to assess the threat and its likelihood, you must enclose documents proving the threat. Such documents include reports of offences, court decisions or, if you are applying for a non-disclosure for personal safety reasons because of your profession, your employer’s account of the threat targeted at you because of your profession.
In most cases, the documents submitted with the application include reports on offences, court records or, if a person applies for a non-disclosure for personal safety, because of their profession, the application should include their employer’s account of the threat targeted at the person.
The applications are processed without delay. The process may be delayed if further clarifications need to be requested. It is important that you justify the application well and enclose the documents proving the threat.
The contact address remains your public address in the Population Information System. The contact address cannot be your home address and it should not reveal where you live. For example, people have used a PO Box either in their municipality of residence or in another city as a contact address.
The Digital and Population Data Services Agency does not deliver any post.
A non-disclosure for personal safety reasons is used to hide the entry concerning the person's address and municipality of residence in the Population Information System used by the authorities. It prevents these details from being disclosed to private parties that would otherwise have access to them. As a result, the entry concerning the municipality of residence and the address cannot be seen, for example, in the systems of hospitals, cities, banks and insurance companies. This will naturally cause situations in which certain services cannot be provided as quickly and flexibly as normally. In some cases, you cannot use the service at all.
A non-disclosure for personal security reasons must be cancelled in writing. No justifications for cancelling it are required.
At the fastest, a non-disclosure for personal safety reasons is removed within a few days from when the details of the non-disclosure are removed from the system. However, this varies and sometimes the notification left from the non-disclosure may affect your use of services even years later.
The non-disclosure for personal safety reasons only applies to the Population Information System and does not prevent your address details from being shown in some other register. At least your phone operator and the postal services must be notified of a secret address.
If your address does not change after a non-disclosure for personal safety has been granted, it is possible that your address details are still in the registers of different companies in spite of the non-disclosure. After the non-disclosure has been granted, you have to be extremely careful not to give your address to different companies to prevent it from ending up in their registers.
Even if you have been granted a non-disclosure for personal safety reasons, the authorities have the right to obtain your address details for carrying out statutory duties.
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Please use secure email if your message contains personal or otherwise confidential information. Choose [email protected] as the recipient:
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