Law note · Finland

Data Protection Act (Tietosuojalaki)

cite Tietosuojalaki 1050/2018 (amendments up to 29/2024 included) stage In effect since 2019-01-01 reviewed 2026-08-24

The Data Protection Act specifies and supplements the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) within the GDPR's own scope of application. Read directly from the Ministry of Justice's official English translation: Section 5 sets the digital age of consent for information society services at 13, the lower bound GDPR Article 8 permits.

Section 24 assigns GDPR Article 83 administrative fines to a collegial Sanctions Board made up of the Data Protection Ombudsman and at least two Deputy Ombudsmen, with a three-member quorum, rather than to a single official, and bars a fine against central government and several other public bodies.

Section 27 disapplies specified GDPR articles for processing performed solely for journalistic, academic, artistic or literary purposes, including Chapter V transfer rules where applying them would infringe freedom of expression.

What it asks of an app

  • Establish a General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Article 6 lawful basis before processing personal data of a person in Finland, including data collected by crawling.
  • Treat consent given by a child of at least 13 years as valid for an information society service offered directly to that child, under Data Protection Act Section 5.
  • Expect a Sanctions Board of the Data Protection Ombudsman and at least two Deputy Ombudsmen, not a single official, to decide any GDPR Article 83 administrative fine against you.

When LexLint raises it

Declared activities: crawls_web, trains_models, deploys_chatbot

Primary source: Ministry of Justice, Finland, official English translation, current to amendments through Act 29/2024

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