Towards digital by default in Finland | Jani Ruuskanen

Okay, thank you. There's a lot of people here. Well, I don't know if there's anyone from the public sector. There's one, okay. So my name is Jani and I work as a Chief Senior Specialist - in Finnish Digital Agency or Digital and Population Data Services Agency, - the Digi- ja väestötietovirasto which is an interesting name. I work as a Secretary General of our management board. About the Finnish Digital Agency, we were established in 2020. I used to work in the Population Register Center before that. I was leading the national architecture for digital services government program. Meaning the development of Suomi.fi services. the national digital services, - Those are the services I'm going to talk about today, - and a little bit of what is happening - when we're moving towards the digital by default. The interesting thing was that when we started in 2020 - merging to a new national agency, - you do remember what happened in 2020? We had a kickoff for 900 people in Finlandia house here five years ago. Three days later we were on lockdown. So we understood that digital services, - whether we are using them as government officials - or what happens with the citizens, - are really crucial. They are a crucial part of our society. We saw a huge jump in the use of digital public services in 2020 and 2021, - and that has stayed. So we had a shift already. Citizens and people living in Finland moved quicker - than we estimated to use the public digital services. We have about 900 employees. We are a national agency, 36 offices currently all over Finland. The shared national services are half of our operations. We are also providing a lot of services for citizens from - the registering of the birth to the marriages to guardianship services. I'm not going to talk about those today because I don't have enough time. What I'm going to talk about is the national Suomi.fi platform. You don't need to focus on all the separate services. This is a software conference. Some of you probably recognize this. We have the identification service, we have the national portal. We have the e-authorizations, - which provides you a digital mandate based on the register - or mandate register on behalf of who you can act. So we have these shared national services - that are in use in all public digital services. Each time you use any municipalities' or government agencies' digital service, - you are using one or several of this platform. Today I'm focusing on e-identification - and the messages and the Suomi.fi mobile, - which is kind of the mobile version of the messages service. Messages is the digital post for the public sector. How many of you are living in Finland - and actually are using the Suomi.fi messages? Have you given the consent? Oh, that's nice per cent, because then the rest of you, - you will get it, whether you want it or not, in 2026. And that's what I'm going to talk about. This is a huge shift, - and it's just the first stage. when we are moving towards the digital by default - with the public digital services. We heard about the marketing, and this is something - that's going to be interesting to see how we are going to do this, - how the whole public sector is going to do this together. Get everybody informed, get everybody on board with these big chains. I'll show you some numbers soon so you understand our problem. How to make sure that these big chains can be done within a year. What is Messages service? This is a simplified picture, - but it's basically a central service for the whole public sector - to send all their messages, whichever kind of decisions, - requests for information, notifications, whatever municipalities, - government organizations, welfare areas are sending, - they are mandated to send them through Suomi.fi messages. Our service delivers it in digital form - for users who have nowadays given consent, - so-called opt-in, using the digital post, using the messages. And deliver the messages on paper to those who haven't given consent. The ratio is bad currently on digital compared to the paper posts. You might have seen some news, for example, yesterday, - I think there were news like how much - tax authorities using money to send paper post - for you when you're all using the Omavero service. this is one of the main drivers behind this project - which I'm going to tell you is also part of the government savings program. So you can see there's a big motivation for us to make this happen. Just to remind you, if you don't use Suomi.fi messages, - this is what it looks like. It looks like an email. Obviously, it's not an email. It's a secure messaging system, - which we have developed together with private tech companies. Some of you are probably at this conference - representing the companies that are working with us. The Suomi.fi services are being built through this public-private partnership. We are purchasing people, the teams, - from several companies to actually build these services. So our officials are just setting the targets, setting the KPIs, - setting the goals where we are heading based on the legislation. Because these Suomi.fi services are based on the legislation and as I said, - they're mandatory for the whole public sector to use. But not for the citizens or companies yet. So it looks like an email solution. It should be very familiar to anyone who is using email. There you can see the mobile application as well. Suomi.fi mobile application only contains - the functionalities of the digital post. It doesn't have other parts of this whole platform. It doesn't include an identification solution or authorizations, - just the digital post. This is the new version that we just launched. This year. So if you don't yet use messages, - go and download the application that's the quickest and easiest, - and start using it. This is our problem. We know based on the statistics of Suomi.fi platform. Over there on the red line, you can see the number of unique users - using a digital public service in Finland. These are the numbers from 2023. You see, it has been growing very heavily since 2018. Last year we had approximately 4.3 million unique users - who used at least one digital public service. They had the means, they had the identification tools, - they had the knowledge to do something. Maybe they filled out an application. Maybe they checked into the MyTax service to see - whether I need to pay something this year or not. At the same time, the number of users of the digital post - has been growing very slowly. Compared to Denmark, we heard about the Danish futurist in the morning. Denmark made this shift 12 years ago. They launched Digital Post for the public sector 12 years ago. They made it mandatory for companies and citizens to use. They have saved hundreds of millions of euros during the decades, - and we are losing that benefit currently in Finland. Other services are very highly used. Finns use digital public services. The identification service was used 209 million times last year. So that's like a lot. Finns use digital public services, but they haven't given the consent - on receiving only digital posts. There are several factors in there. We are having this kind of a problem. When they are not end users, - there might be the government organizations who say, - we are not starting to use the digital post - until you have a certain amount of end users, - because we want to get all our posts in one channel. It needs to go through this for everyone. This is what we are now going to change. Now you can see here the potential. I took some numbers because this is part of the government savings program. We see how the electronic mail that has been delivered has been growing. It's like a static. We want to change that in 26 to a huge number. Currently, the volume is increasing by - about 2.5 million digital messages per year. We've calculated the savings of at least one euro per message. Well, you can see the price is going higher and higher. So that's the minimum. That doesn't take into account the actual chains of the process, - what it means when the organizations can automate, - for example, their services. Our agency has automated a lot of services - based on the legislation that came into effect last year in Finland, - that we can have automatic decision- making based on digital public services. We are not talking about AI. We can use that for analytics and data and maybe marketing, that sort of thing. But not for actual service delivery. That's not allowed in Finland. There's the AI Act coming on in the EU and that needs to be implemented. Then we'll see what kind of possibilities the AI gives us as well. But automated decision-making is already a huge step. If you go and want to, let's say, change your name, - you do it without service. That's fully automated. If you have the messages service, you get the decision in three minutes. Your name will be registered in the population register - and delivered to the whole society. We've had some interesting cases of people - who have decided to return their original surname, - maybe on Friday, Saturday night after bar or something, - and then being shocked that it was done. They get the decision already. That was something that we had to figure out a little bit. Should we add a delay or something? You can cancel this. Don't do this during the night - when you have a fight with your wife or husband. And about the Finns, this was referred to in the morning as well. The Futurist said that the Finns have high digital skills. But the transition is going to need support in all age groups. This is from the statistics of Finland last year. They made this survey on the phone, - trying to map out the digital skills of different age groups - in people living in Finland. Not just the Finnish citizens, but people living in Finland. And as you can see, the biggest problems are going to be - with the age groups who have just retired probably. This is something that we've seen also in our own research, - that when people retire, their digital skills might go down very rapidly. This is something that we may be as a society need to figure out, - how to keep everybody digital, even after you leave work life. We can predict that this is happening. But as I can say, 75% of Finns have at least basic skills. And when we define basic skills, - it is, for example, reading email, using the email application. That's why I'm comparing our digital post to that. Because everybody with the basic skills should be able - to at least use the Messages service. So this is now part of the current government program. This is what we are implementing in the Finnish Digital Agency. We will gradually shift to making digital services the primary channel. The first step is the digital post, Suomi.fi messages. Which will be made mandatory. Amended the legislation that it will be mandatory for those users - who already use digital public services. If you don't use digital public service, - you can still keep on receiving your paper post. Maybe in the future, it might come once a week or once a month. I don't know how that's going to deliver in the future. But anyway, this legislation work is ongoing - and the implementation in our agency is ongoing. I'll show you how we're going to do it. And at this point, - the goal is that these changes to legislation and the implementation - will come into effect at the beginning of 2026. That's one year from now on. We have a little bit of a challenge - how to get people to understand what's happening. So this is the implementation program. Obviously the ministries, the Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Finance - are amending the legislation, making the legislating preparation work. In the end, next year, it's going to go to the parliament. The parliament is going to decide. We don't yet know, but we need to already do planning - and implementation based on something that we still don't know - what kind of legislation there's going to be. Our agency is in charge of the actual development of the messages service - to adapt to these changes in legislation. But also to plan how we are going to support - the public sector organizations, - how they can communicate to their clients about this change, the customers. How are we going to tell and market this thing to everyone in Finland? Remember, I'm not talking about citizens. I'm talking about anyone - registered in the population register who has an identification method. So this is not just a Finnish issue, so to speak. And this is what it's going to mean, the jump. So last year we had exactly 4.3 million users on digital public services. We know that based on the identification logs, - basically, the data we were talking about. Currently, I took this last week when I had to deliver the... the presentation that last week on 12th, we had exactly 1.464 million - persons who had consented, opted in, - went to Suomi.fi portal or downloaded the application and said, - yes, I want only digital posts from the public sector. So our objective is to get about 2.9 million - persons in a year to understand that, no, we are not asking about you anymore. If you're going to whichever service in January 2026, - when the legislation is in force, - hopefully, the first people go to check their taxes, - then we get 2.3 million people - who are getting the post automatically after that. And this is something we need to work together with the whole public sector, - but also I think with the public, private and third sector. So everybody can understand how big this change is gonna be. And it's calculated on the minimum, - this will generate at least 50 million euros - in savings for the public sector starting in 2026. Then it's gonna grow obviously, - the more messages are being delivered in digital form. So there's a big expectation on the political level, - but also from the ministry that this needs to be done successfully. So we are moving from opt-in to opt-out process. That is something that we still don't know yet how it's going to happen. Because obviously in the future also there's going to be users - who are dropping off. You saw the age gap. When you're getting older, typically your digital skills go down. You have to be able to get back to the paper world. So there's going to be an opt-out process for this, - but we still don't know how it's going to work. Whether it's going to be a physical service, - a phone channel, is it going to be some sort of form? Are we going to do this together with the whole public sector? And this is something that I don't know because it depends on the legislation. I only know how we're going to do the opt-in. This is how we're going to do it. Now, actually, this is a prototype. So if you're a software developer, don't say or ask, - this is exactly how it's going to look. But as you can see, we are going to do this through e-identification - because the legislation is going to say, - if you use digital public service, - then you are capable of also receiving digital posts. It's going to be part of the e-identification flow itself in 2026. So when you are going now to the MyTax service in 26, - you are going to be told, - by the way, you are using this public service from now on, - download the mobile app or go to Suomi.fi, - you're receiving also digital post. That's how it's going to be shown. We're going to bring in this info - and before already, but this is the plan. So it's going to affect a lot of people very quickly. And then, because I was asked to talk about what is the future. I mean, this is the first part. So it's like a first shift on going digital by default. I think it's time for us to start the discussion in society. Where are we? Where do we want to go with the public service delivery? Because if you think about these numbers, - we compare to the user's 2023, - which is about 4.3 million. We know that we have about 4.5 million adults based on the voter register. So those who are allowed to vote, for example. If you compare, that's nearly 95% of adults in Finland - who have already used at least one or several digital public services. So are we digital by default in that sense already with the citizens - or people living in Finland? So what should or could be those next activities? And this is something, again, I don't know, - but there are some discussion points that I would like the society to have. Like, are we going to have the next phase - where we are going to make digital services, - the messages or all digital services mandatory for companies, for example? Like Denmark has already done, other countries have already done. It's possible, I mean, the skills of the entrepreneurs and - the way the companies are already got used to using digital public service, - there are some services that are already mandatory for companies to - use in digital form, or you might have just an exception - to do something on paper. Would that be the way to go? There's another issue, which is about these citizens' use in Finland. We don't have legislation taking any sort of - stand on what does it mean to have assisted use of digital services. We have, as a part of Suomi.fi platform, have the e-authorizations. You can create a digital mandate based on the law. That's the legal way of giving somebody the right to use digital public service. But we also know that there are a lot of cases, - like within family, parents, grandparents, children, husband, wife. You might use the digital public services the way that the person - identifies themselves and then other person uses the digital service. Or the worst case, you give the identification method, - which you are not allowed to do, obviously, to somebody else. But there's no sort of legal framework for recognizing this. And I think that would be important in the future to correct. How do we see this? People help each other to use the digital services. Should there be legislation saying who can do that and based on what? Or should we focus on the actual quality - of the digital services, the digital public services, or the coverage? Do we have everything in digital form already to say that we can... let's say, have this digital by default for the use of digital services, - not just the post. Do we need to have more activities on the digital skills? As I said, for some reason, when you retire, - it looks like your digital skills start rapidly go down. Should we invest in the public sector for support, for digital support? Or should we go and maximize the use of current legislation - by creating more proactive automated digital services? Because this we can do based on law already. And then the question, what is the role of the generative AIE on public services - in the future? We are in the conference based on this topic. And we don't know. The public sector comes a little bit after you anyway. But the public sector is going to move there anyway. So should we have the discussion already now? How is this going to be affecting - the producing of digital public services in the future? Because I don't know if anybody has answers on the public sector, - at least I don't have yet. So I will leave with these questions based on where are we moving. And to remind you, download the application, say yes, - save money for the public sector already. Not wait one year when you're mandated to do that. Okay, thanks. [outro music]