Company documents with personal identity codes and passport details have been available for purchase in Virre Information Service

The Finnish Patent and Registration Office (PRH) has gone through 5.7 million Trade Register documents in its electronic archive. The documents were reviewed using batch processing to improve security.

The batch processing showed that documents containing personal identity codes and passport copies have been available for purchase in the PRH Virre Information Service. They are now encrypted and can no longer be purchased in Virre.

The case is not a data breach, and it was not possible for buyers to know the contents of the documents in advance.

In total, we have identified 3,495 purchases related to notifications in which the documents erroneously included personal identity codes or passport copies as public information. More than half of these purchases were made by an authority. The number is less than 0.5 per cent of all the documents in the electronic archive.

We apologise for this inconvenience.

We have informed the Data Protection Ombudsman about the matter and published an announcement. In order to avoid similar situations in the future, we have taken batch processing into permanent use. The process encrypts documents containing personal identity codes and passport details.

Instructions for persons whose data have been erroneously available for purchase in Virre

It is most unlikely but possible that erroneously disclosed personal identity codes are misused.
We have published instructions for any person who suspects that a document containing their personal identity code or passport details has been available for purchase in Virre. Read the instructions at prh.fi.

Affected companies

See a list of the companies whose notifications with personal identity codes and passport copies were erroneously purchased in Virre.Open link in a new tab(xlsx, 0.09 Mt)
The companies submitted the notifications containing these documents to the Finnish Trade Register between November 2014 and the beginning of December 2021.

We have sent a letter to these companies and asked them to pay attention to the content of their Trade Register notifications in the future.

Be careful with your personal data

Anyone can purchase the information recorded in the Finnish Trade Register, also notifications and their enclosures. Therefore, do not include any documents containing personal identity codes, home addresses, or other non-public details when you send notifications to the register.

You can submit extracts of any required final meeting minutes. This means that you do not have to submit the entire minutes. Go to prh.fi and read our instructions for companies filing personal identity codes and other personal data with the Trade Register.

For more information, please contact
PRH Customer Service
Tel. +358 29 509 5200
Service hours between 1 and 11 March 2022: Mon–Fri 9.00–16.15