3.2. Measures mandated by the Act on Information Management and the management of information resources

In Finland, the management of information resources is governed by the Act on Information Management in Public Administration, which entered into effect on 1 January 2020. The objectives of the Act are to ensure harmonised and high-quality management and data secure processing of datasets of authorities to implement the principle of openness, to enable secure and efficient exploitation of the datasets of authorities and to promote the interoperability of information systems and information resources. The information management of state and municipal authorities is assessed and steered by the Information Management Board of Public Administration established under the Ministry of Finance. At the City of Helsinki, the overall management of tasks related to the Act on Information Management and other legislation on information management is carried out by the City’s information management workgroup.

The Act on Information Management imposes a number of obligations on the City, including:

• The City must determine the users and owners, data content (particularly in terms of its confidentiality), retention periods, archiving and disposal of information resources, and prepare a description of how information resources are handled in a data-secure manner.
• The City must prepare an information flow assessment, which details the transfer of data between authorities, the data transfer method and the data content being transferred.
• The City must improve the interoperability of data following guidelines issued by ministries.
• The City must collect information on data retention periods, transfer to archives, archiving methods and locations and disposal.

The City’s data management plan is part of the information management model mandated by the Act on Information Management. One of the purposes of the data management plan is to control the lifecycle management of the digital document data detailed in the plan. The data management plan does not control the data materials of information systems at data unit level. Instead, the data management plan should include the digital documents formed from different data units based on various search criteria, such as statistics, studies, reports, etc.

Some of the objectives of the Act on Information Management are the same as the objectives of this Data Strategy as regards the management, sharing and utilisation of information resources. As such, it is important for the City to also take the Data Strategy into account in the determinations and measures mandated by the Act on Information Management. In addition to ensuring compliance with the Act, the City will also, as necessary, carry out measures that generally facilitate its data utilisation. The City recognises that data that is formed collaboratively by various operators and based on a harmonised information model can be used to build modular services that nevertheless provide a unified service experience to customers.