Citizen Certificate

The Citizen Certificate is needed for safe online services. The certificate is used for identifying, encrypting e-mails and documents and providing electronic signature. The chip of the ID card includes the Citizen Certificate.

The Population Register Centre’s (etu) trademark helps consumers to find and identify the online services that use the Citizen Certificate.

The Citizen Certificate is standardized personal data, an electronic identity based on Public Key Infrastructure. It contains, among other information, a citizen’s first name, last name and an electronic client identifier.

Electronically signed document is legally as binding and undisputed as a document with a traditional signature. The Population Register Centre is currently the only so called Certificate Authority of qualified certificates in Finland that is able to issue Pan-European certificates, as specified by the Act and the relevant EU Directive, that provide high levels of information security and contain the correct identity. Every personal certificate issued by the Population Register Centre is a qualified certificate. The Population Register Centre publishes the issued certificates in a public directory.