surveillance

[Curious1]

I think what is minutiae and what is bigger picture varies with circumstances, with what each person already has covered, and with how the different things knock onto one another I actually have a good idea which city and which course, it would be a postgrad degree, and income for now is sorted out as well. After the degree I'd be employable in principle in my chosen area, wheres here it would be very difficult to do the same. Whether I'm able to get a job is another matter, but I am not going to post questions asking "does anyone know of jobs in such-and-such sector opening right after I finish my degree" Also, I'm not posting too much here because the internet is a public forum. It would make a *lot* more sense with all the details and background.

So what happened with this other guy - moved city and went off the grid, then fell off his bike and couldn't get healthcare?

[Pursuivant]

He wanted to live in Rome, but didn't manage to do how Romans do it. Here we goes, meet taaremmas viewtopic.php?f=20&t=19617

[Upphew]

Is it possible to live in Finland with KELA card and number, British passport but no "voluntary" ID card?
Does this mean no renting, electricity, etc - or are there workarounds (using the KELA number and/or the British passport)?

wtf? What is the difference between "voluntary" ID card and HeTu + any ID ? Answer = none.

[Curious1]

Probably not much difference if the ID doesn't commit me to fingerprinting. Maybe I'm too quick to rule it out.

As to the other stuff, it's definitely on my mind but not in the remit of what I want to discuss in public. Sorry guys

[Geezus]

Surveillance in Finland is not like the ones in the States, Germany or UK. I support full time surveillance in Finland for the safety of people.

[Pursuivant]

Is it possible to live in Finland with KELA card and number, British passport but no "voluntary" ID card?
Does this mean no renting, electricity, etc - or are there workarounds (using the KELA number and/or the British passport)?

wtf? What is the difference between "voluntary" ID card and HeTu + any ID ? Answer = none.

You have to prove it is your ID number - so you have to have some official card that shows it, and accepted ones are ID & drivers licence & Finnish passport. Back to the loop.

[CH]

I think people might have understood "smaller towns" in a different sense than i meant though, rural places have a bad rep for tolerance pretty much everywhere, I was thinking more of the 100,000-ish places vs the big three or four.

You do realize, that in Finland the 100 000-ish places are the big three or four? No way I would count 100 000 something as small here. 10 000 something is a small town here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Fi ... population

But no, you won't feel surveilled here. ID here is just what it is, a card to be able to show who you are, the unique person, as we don't like to send bills here to the wrong person. ID thefts are pretty much not known here, but passport are big on the international market, so I rather not carry my passport more than totally necessary. The only official ID I have is my passport, but I use my driver's licence for ID purposes. There are no random stops at the street. The only time is with trafic checks for things like drunk driving or if people are wearing their seat belts. No gated communities. No police standing at the corners. No neighborhood police (or whatever it is called in the UK, where ordinary citizens can function in a police like manner in their neighborhood). And no, no matter what the previous poster's joked, neighbor's won't be recording your comings and goings because they don't care (look for all the complaints in this forum about the neighbor's who don't even say "hi!").

The reason you are coming off as a complete loon is that from a Finnish perspective your questions are totally far out in the crazy land. We are not a police state, for heaven's sake (unlike what UK seems to be slowly turning into)!

But honestly, if I may be so bold to suggest, whatever trouble you have in your life now, get it fixed where you are now. It might feel like you just need to find somewhere else to live and it will solve your problems, but it won't matter in what kind of paradise you live, you will bring yourself and your problems with you and you will still feel the eyes on you. And then you will have the additional problems of not knowing the language or the culture.

[Curious1]

I can see that a lot of the problems are that I'm reading things in a very British way, for instance that my first thought with using a state-issued number for contracts was that the state must be keeping a huge register of everyone's contracts to data-mine at will (which is reportedly done with ANPR and a few other things in the UK), when people explained it was to be sure who someone is because the number is more unique than the name, it just seemed completely different. "Small town" similarly, I should have realised that Finnish people do not think of everything outside their top few cities as "small". It's a learning curve I suppose.

The problem is situational as much as personal, but at some point I'll have to decide if moving will cause more rather than less problems - it's a fine equation because there are other reasons for moving too, and other difficulties which I've not posted. Thanks for offering advice though I certainly need to think about what you've said.

[Pursuivant]

Don't think the British way - you drive on the wrong side of the road and have plumbing on the wrong side of the house

the state must be keeping a huge register of everyone's contracts to data-mine at will

Depends on the "contract"... marriages, land deeds... http://www.vaestorekisterikeskus.fi/vrk ... /index_eng
Mind you, in Sweden the tax office takes care of all that as well.

As far as data mining goes, the question is what information goes and to which direction. Its mostly top-down, so say the bank gets information you are you, you have a land deed, but the land office doesn't know if you have a mortgage on it in which bank... So say when you move house, you make the address change into the magistrate, the information "flows down" so you really don't need to inform of your address change as the address information service then tells all the other interested parties, KELA, tax etc. Of course then theres ways to ban some or most of it and get frustrated not having it all done automagically.

[riku2]

I can see that a lot of the problems are that I'm reading things in a very British way, for instance that my first thought with using a state-issued number for contracts was that the state must be keeping a huge register of everyone's contracts to data-mine at will (which is reportedly done with ANPR and a few other things in the UK)

This IS pretty much what happens in Finland (apart from ANPR). With a small population and reasonably modern IT then there are huge databases of information that are all linked together. So when you visit a doctor they can pull your medical records up even though you visited other health care centres in the past. And when you tell the population register that you have moved house (something that is mandatory by law) then they tell the tax office (your tax rate depends on the county where you live) and the bank and all kinds of other places. So you will not write lots of paper letters about your change of address.

In 11 years of living in finland I think I can count on one hand the number of paper letters I've written to any government or private company in finland.

And unlike the UK we're not too worried here about people misusing the information or hacking in and getting it all out. Also there are not many stories of the type "CDROM of 100,000 patient's data left of a train" or "usb stick with details of 2M benefit claimants found on the street" that seem to crop up in the UK every few months.

I really don't mind that my tax return is pre-filled with my share holdings, salary, mortgage payments and the like. It means it takes about 2mins to complete my tax return every year- something that I do in english btw. Try to fill your tax return in the UK in German or French and see how far you get

And I more than benefit from the trust in finnish society when buying things. The plumber gives me a bill and I have a week to transfer the money to his bank account (cheque books do not exist here and no-one would know what a cheque guarantee card is). For new windows I paid half when they were delivered from the factory and the other half after they were fitted a week later.

On the other hand things in finland are open in a way that might shock brits. Via an SMS I can look up anyone's name from their phone number (often the address too). From a car licence plate I can find the owners name. From their name I can get their tax return figures for 2009. All via a text message.

Does anyone go to the airport, look at which cars are a bit dusty, find who owns them (via sms) and then break into their homes? probably not although foreign villains would probably find this quite profitable and convenient. They could also screen out those who have an expensive car but low income (they've spent all their money on a posh car and will not have much worth stealing).

[Pursuivant]

Does anyone go to the airport, look at which cars are a bit dusty, find who owns them (via sms) and then break into their homes?

They don't need to, as they just look it up in facebook and have the gits posting "being lobsterized on the beach and we'll be home in a fortnight, hope poor emo teenager remembers to feed the cat before he goes camping at the rock festival for the weekend..."

[CH]

I can see that a lot of the problems are that I'm reading things in a very British way, for instance that my first thought with using a state-issued number for contracts was that the state must be keeping a huge register of everyone's contracts to data-mine at will (which is reportedly done with ANPR and a few other things in the UK)

This IS pretty much what happens in Finland (apart from ANPR). With a small population and reasonably modern IT then there are huge databases of information that are all linked together. So when you visit a doctor they can pull your medical records up even though you visited other health care centres in the past. And when you tell the population register that you have moved house (something that is mandatory by law) then they tell the tax office (your tax rate depends on the county where you live) and the bank and all kinds of other places. So you will not write lots of paper letters about your change of address.

Well, no... no data mining. There are lots of different databases, and the key to getting a lot of information about you would be your id number, if somebody could connect to all those databases. But there is no one big database with all the information about you, and they are not really connected. For instance the tax office cannot go and get the information they need for tax purposes from your bank's database, it is the bank who sends that information to the tax office.

So the potential for data mining is there, but so far they aren't linked in that way and there is pretty strict regulations on who can access a database and who they can share that information with. You usually get a paper asking for permission to share the data with appropriate instance (specialized doctor sharing the information with your health centre), and if you don't give that permission then they cannot share it. For instance for my daughter her doctor could see that she had visited a speech therapist, but that is all, not why or any information that the speech therapist had written... and yes, we got a permission slip for information sharing at the speech therapist, although I don't remember what permissions we gave for that.

How personal information in databases can be stored, shared, who can access them, etc is pretty regulated by law (Henkilötietolaki, Personal Information Act), and we take it pretty seriously here. For instance, a person with access to the municipal database (?) got caught looking for information about his/her neighbors for fun (logged access), and there was a huge bruhaha about that.
Good information here, but it is in Finnish: http://www.tietosuoja.fi/1698.htm
The English version is pretty brief: http://www.tietosuoja.fi/1560.htm
Any database containing information about you falls under this law, and that can be a bit of a pain in the rear. For instance if a shop keeper want to have an online contest... nice, but check that the data is stored in accordance with the law. Or, if a person is missing and they have a mobile phone on them, it would be pretty easy to triangulate from the base stations exactly where they are... the only thing is that that is not possible to do according to the law. The phone company is not permitted to give that information out even to the police and the police sure as heck is not allowed to go and hack the phone company's database.

You also have the right to ask any instance what data is stored about you. You can also usually forbid sharing of information. But yes, if you don't want to be in any database then Finland is definitely not for you. We like order and convenience. But then, if you need a tinfoil hat, you really shouldn't be writing on the Internet as you are giving away information freely that anybody can data mine.

[Rosamunda]

Topical interest in YLE today:

http://www.yle.fi/uutiset/news/2010/08/ ... 72946.html

[Pursuivant]

I'm all for that if they also get access to the foreigner's residence card biometric registry

[Rosamunda]

The article is ambiguous since it says:

Within ten years, every person who applies for a passport in Finland will have their prints in the registry.

I assume this is incorrect since people applying for French, USA, Asian, African passports in Finland would not be included. A bit lost in translation I think!