Personal data breach at OmaStadi.hel.fi – corrective measures have been taken

Based on a data protection assessment, it has been found that the terms of use of the OmaStadi service have not sufficiently described to the data subjects that the profiles cre-ated in the OmaStadi service are public. The City of Helsinki immediately started investi-gating the matter more thoroughly and taking appropriate measures. The data breach does not require any action from city residents.

Published25.5.2023 9:59 Updated 25.5.2023 10:01

Helsinki residents can use OmaStadi to submit ideas and vote on how the city will use EUR 8.8 million. OmaStadi is based on an electronic platform providing a social inclusion service. The displayed user profile information has included the name and user name, and users have also been able to add a personal picture, link or other additional information to their profile information. The displayed profile information also included the person's ideas, proposals and comments as well as their "followers" and "follows". The profile has not included matters related to voting. The user has had the opinion to delete their user account. The profiles have shown up in search results of search engines and searches by the OmaStadi website's search function, for example.

All user profiles have been removed from the OmaStadi website after the need for correction was detected. The information may still appear in search engine listings, but the links will not open the data. The information will disappear from search engines after some time. OmaStadi service's search functionality is disabled.

Login to the OmaStadi website is currently disabled until the login and authentication deficiencies in the service have been corrected.

The site will be renewed - user profiles will be hidden

We will improve the site so that the user profiles will, as a rule, be hidden in voting situations, and the users will have the option to make their profile public by giving their consent. When a city resident makes a proposal or comments on proposals in the service, the profile is, as a rule, public. Still, the resident can hide it if they wish.

More information

Johanna Sinkkonen, Team Manager, [email protected] (Link opens default mail program)puh. +358 40 183 4931 and Kirsi Verkka, Development Manager, [email protected] (Link opens default mail program)tel. +358 40 336 2281.

Instructions of the Data Protection Ombudsman's office (Link leads to external service)if you have been affected by a personal data breach.

• Instructions of the Data Protection Ombudsman's office if you have been affected by a personal data breach (Link leads to external service)
• OmaStadi -web page (Link leads to external service)

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