Until now, foreign citizens in Finland who didn’t have a Finnish personal identity code, or couldn’t use the Finnish identification
tokens have used the services of Katso to identify themselves and use public administration e-services.
Katso services will be discontinued on 30 April 2021 and are going to be replaced by the Finnish Authenticator Identification Service (Suomi.fi) that is also intended for foreign citizens’ identification. That enables the use of the services of Kela, the Finnish Tax Administration, the Income Register, and other authorities.
Starting from 1 May 2021, it is no longer possible to use the Katso ID for identification, and the roles and authorizations will not be valid. The authorizations set up in Katso will not be transferred to the new identification service therefore, they must be created again in the Finnish Authenticator Identification Service (Suomi.fi).
If you use our accounting services, you must update the identification service provider, so we could continue submitting the declarations to the Incomes Register and the Finnish Tax Administration on your behalf.
The users of the Finnish Authenticator Identification Service (Suomi.fi) are not required to have any other personal tokens that will be mandatory in the future to log in to the e-services, such as online banking codes or a mobile certificate.
How to change the Identification Service?
To use the identification service a foreigner has to register a user identifier in the Finnish Authentication Identification Service and then do the initial ID proofing in the Finnish Authenticator app (Android or IOS) by logging in with the user identifier or e-mail and password. For ID proofing, one must take a photo of oneself as well as his or her passport or national ID card in the app. The identification service will confirm the person’s identity if the submitted photo matches with the information on the identity document. After the registration and proofing of the ID, foreigners can log in to the e-services using their user identifier or e-mail, password, and application PIN. Additionally, if you are registering with Finnish Authentication Identification Service (Suomi.fi), you will need to send an application to connect your company with the signatory. 1Office can offer assistance and support with the process.
Before registering a foreigner’s user identification, make sure that the e-service you want to use supports authentication with the Finnish Authenticator app.
