Suomi.fi Messages – your organisation’s secure channel for official communication

The demands for official communication are constantly increasing. Electronic official communication to citizens and companies must be fast, accessible and, above all, safe. In addition, the General Data Protection Regulation and the authorities’ own data security practices require that electronic communication must be based on reliable and controlled channels.

Suomi.fi Messages meets these requirements. The service provides public administration actors with a controlled and secure messaging channel that enables secure and traceable exchange of information between public administration and its clients.

The Digital and Population Data Services Agency is responsible for Suomi.fi Messages’ data security, maintenance and audits and for ensuring that the communication environment remains in compliance with laws and standards (such as the ISO/IEC 27001 information security certificate).

A safer alternative to paper and email

The traceability of a paper letter ends when the letter has been put in an envelope and slipped into the mailbox for forward transport. Who will the letter end up with? Or does it end up with anyone? In Suomi.fi Messages, it is possible to monitor the progress of electronic messages to the recipient using state information.

Ordinary email is not secure, as email messages often pass through different service providers in plain language. In Suomi.fi Messages, electronic messages are encrypted, which excludes risks related to data takeover. Regrettably, email accounts are compromised daily, and email account IDs are forwarded to family members. Organisations have no way of knowing who the email eventually ends up with. For this reason, secure message that is directed to email is not always the right solution either.

Also addresses and emails may change, and few people remember to report their new information everywhere. The risk is that the customer contact information maintained by the organisation has expired, which means that the information sent to a client may go to a wrong place and doesn’t reach the recipient in time. At worst, this may have a negative impact on the realisation of the person’s rights: an invoice is left unnoticed, time for submitting additional information or appeal period expires, appointment is missed... In Suomi.fi Messages, the consent register and the email addresses provided are up to date.

We have compiled a table that makes it easy to compare the differences between different transmission methods. It shows how Suomi.fi Messages provides a secure channel for sending important communications and notifications to your clients.

Security benefits of Suomi.fi Messages for organisations

In Suomi.fi Messages, security has been considered in several stages: information is transmitted reliably and securely to the right person.

• Certainty of the recipient of the electronic message: the recipient is identified with a personal identity code or a business ID. You can always be sure that the message reaches the right person and not, for example, their namesake.
• Sending sensitive information: The electronic messages are encrypted in Suomi.fi Messages, so you can send or receive sensitive data to or from your clients.
• Traceability and verifiable service: You can track when the message has reached the recipient and when it has been opened. When using the electronic verifiable service functionality, you can receive a legally binding acknowledgement of receipt, which will clarify the calculation of the appeal period.
• Consent management: Person’s consent to electronic notification is up to date and can be managed by the person themselves.

Please note the following matters that your organisation is responsible for

The Digital and Population Data Services Agency produces the service and ensures a secure environment for sending electronic messages. In addition, organisations using Suomi.fi Messages are required to comply with certain practices that ensure the implementation of data security and data protection.

Your organisation is responsible for

• appropriate management of the data security of the organisation’s own information systems,
• monitoring and installing security updates,
• appropriate reporting of information security incidents to the Digital and Population Data Services Agency, when necessary,
• maintaining the connection and the systems related to it in terms of their access rights, user IDs, backups and incident management
• changing the password of the REST API on a regular basis and when necessary,
• retrieving electronic messages sent by clients in the REST API to ensure that they reach your organisation.

Suomi.fi Messages is also a secure electronic mailbox for your organisation’s clients

Suomi.fi Messages is also a good choice for citizens. Compared to email or SMS-based communication, Suomi.fi Messages ensures that the information is transmitted securely and only accessible to the right persons.

• Electronic messages remain protected: You can read electronic messages with strong identification (e.g. with a mobile certificate or online banking codes).
• Reliability: Only approved authorities and public organisations can send messages to Suomi.fi Messages. In other words, your clients will not receive phishing messages or spam mail in Suomi.fi Messages. Everyone can trust that the official message they have received is genuine, you can click the links and safely save the attachment on your device.

As legal amendments enter into force in 2026, citizens will primarily receive their mail from the authorities electronically in Suomi.fi Messages. In practice, this means that when a person using the authorities’ electronic e-services identifies themselves for the first time, Suomi.fi Messages will be activated for them, unless they already use the service. This change brings approximately two million new users to Suomi.fi Messages. In 2026, Suomi.fi Messages will have more than four million users who expect to receive emails by an increasing number of authorities to Suomi.fi Messages. For this reason, it is important that your organisation sends notifications and other messages to its clients in a uniform, secure manner. This is possible when you use Suomi.fi Messages.

Henna-Maria Vähämäki, Senior Specialist, Digital and Population Data Services Agency