Estonia, Finland to exchange death record data

TALLINN - The Estonian Interior Ministry and the Finnish Digital and Population Data Services Agency launched an updated data exchange of population register data via the X-road in Helsinki on Tuesday, with death records as the first data to be exchanged under the new agreement.

The exchange of death records eliminates randomness in data movement and dependence on relatives' awareness when notifying the state of a citizen's death. According to the agreement, the two countries will automatically notify each other of a person's death by exchanging population register data. If the data about a person in the population register is correct, decisions granting benefits or services to the deceased can be invalidated.

The exchange of other population register data specified in the agreement will be added gradually as technical capabilities are developed.

Enel Pungas, head of the registry procedures department of the Estonian Interior Ministry, said the new agreement on the exchange of population register data supports the free movement of people by simplifying the keeping of population records in the two countries and contributing to improving the data quality of the population registers.

Timo Salovaara, deputy head of the Digital and Population Data Services Agency of Finland, said that in the first phase of the information exchange, the agency will receive information on Finnish citizens who have passed away in Estonia. In the next phase, the exchanges will be extended to changes of residence between the countries. In the future, the exchanges will also extend to other information, such as changes in name and marital status as well as information on the birth of a child.

The data exchange stems from a bilateral data exchange agreement concluded between the countries in 2022. While Estonia and Finland have been exchanging population register residency data since 2006, with Finland informing Estonia about Estonian citizens who have moved there, and Estonia informing Finland about Finnish citizens who have moved to Estonia, the updated agreement covers more individuals and data.

Within a few years, the exchange of all data listed in the new agreement will be launched. By the end of this year, the exchange of data on people moving from Estonia to Finland and vice versa will begin. In connection with this, individuals who have both Finnish and Estonian addresses registered as their place of residence will also be identified. These individuals will be contacted to rectify their data, as a person can only have a registered place of residence in one country at a time. This means that both the Estonian and Finnish population registers must show the same data for every resident. Lastly, the exchange of marital status data of Estonian and Finnish citizens will be added.

As of March 1, there were 55,128 Estonian citizens living in Finland and 7,427 Finnish citizens living in Estonia. According to the population register, 24 Finnish citizens died in Estonia and 179 Estonian citizens died in Finland last year.