FI - 2025: Country Fiche

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. State of Play
   1. Coordination
   2. Functioning and coordination of the infrastructure
   3. Usage of the infrastructure for spatial information
   4. Data Sharing Arrangements
   5. Costs and Benefits

Introduction

The INSPIRE Directive sets the minimum conditions for interoperable sharing and exchange of spatial data across Europe as part of a larger European Interoperability Framework and the e-Government Action Plan that contributes to the Digital Single Market Agenda. Article 21 of INSPIRE Directive defines the basic principles for monitoring and reporting. More detailed implementing rules regarding INSPIRE monitoring and reporting have been adopted as [Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2019/1372] (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dec_impl/2019/1372/oj) on the 19th August 2019.

This country fiche highlights the progress in the various areas of INSPIRE implementation. It includes information on monitoring 2024 acquired in December 2024 and Member States update.

State of Play

A high-level view on the governance, use and impact of the INSPIRE Directive in Finland.

Coordination

National Contact Point

• Name of Public Authority: Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
• Postal Address: PL 30, 00023 Valtioneuvosto, Finland
• Contact Email: kirjaamo.mmm@gov.fi
• Telephone Number: +35829516001
• Telefax Number: (09) 160 54202
• National INSPIRE Website: INSPIRE edistää paikkatietojen löydettävyyttä ja yhteentoimivuutta
• MIG Contacts:
  • Contact Person: Mika Karjalainen
  • Email: mika.karjalainen@gov.fi
  • Telephone Number: +358295162335
  • Contact Person: Antti Vertanen
  • Email: Antti.vertanen@gov.fi
  • Contact Person: Jari Reini
  • Email: jari.reini@nls.fi
  • Contact Person: Hanna Horppila
  • Email: hanna.horppila@nls.fi
• MIG T Contacts:
  • Contact Person: Jari Reini
  • Email: jari.reini@nls.fi
  • Contact Person: Lena Hallin-Pihlatie
  • Email: lena.hallin-pihlatie@nls.fi

Coordination Structure & Progress:

Coordination structure

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is the national contact point of INSPIRE towards the province of Åland and the rest of Finland. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is represented in the MIG.

The INSPIRE secretariat at the National Land Survey of Finland provides support and guidance for national INSPIRE implementers and maintains national SDI services, such as the Finnish Geoportal. The INSPIRE secretariat is represented in the MIG and the permanent technical subgroup of the MIG and acts as the official secretariat of the National Council for Geographic Information and its extended secretariat.

The National Council for Geographic Information consists of representatives of ministries, major data providers, universities, and cooperation networks. The following ministries are represented in the council: Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Ministry of Transport and Communications, Ministry of the Environment, and Ministry of Employment and the Economy. The council has 5-6 meetings per year.

The Extended Secretariat of the National Council for Geographic Information provides policy and implementation support. The following organizations are represented in the extended secretariat: National Land Survey, Finnish Environmental Institute, Meteorological Institute, Geological Research Centre, Finnish Transport Agency, Natural Resources Institute Finland, Statistics Finland, Digital and Population Data Services Agency, Finnish Transport and Communications Agency, and representatives from local and regional governance. The extended secretariat has 5-6 meetings per year.

GeoForum Finland is a network established in 2020 that promotes the use of spatial information and location intelligence in society. The network supports collaboration between the geospatial industry and organizations producing and using spatial data, including companies, public administration, and educational and research institutions.

The Nordic INSPIRE Network is an informal INSPIRE implementation network with Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, focusing on cross-border activities and knowledge exchange on INSPIRE implementation issues. The network has meetings twice a year.

Progress

• The users of the National Geoportal Paikkatietoikkuna are very pleased with the service (a school grade of 8.9 out of 10). Over 1,000 responses were received to the survey about the use of the Geoportal. About two-thirds of those who responded said they use Paikkatietoikkuna in their work, and the majority of them need it daily or weekly.
• There is an ongoing project to build a new national system for the built environment (planning, building, and construction permit data): RYHTI.
• Finland co-operated with Estonia, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and OGC in the GeoE3 project (2020-02/2024), providing a connection between existing and emerging national, regional, and cross-border digital services. It provided a dynamic integration of high-value data sets and services (e.g., meteorological or statistical data) with geospatial features from existing national geospatial data platforms (e.g., building data or road network data).
• This work continues through the Location Innovation Hub as the Location Europe platform to combine climate, statistics, and geospatial datasets in a one-stop-shop.
• The Location Innovation Hub is a center of expertise focused on location information and technology. It aims to help organizations leverage geospatial information and technologies to enhance their operations and services. It provides free coaching for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and public administration organizations. The hub offers services such as business development coaching, technology adoption assistance, and funding opportunities. The hub is coordinated by the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute (FGI), and the services are delivered through an extensive network of partners. The Location Innovation Hub is part of the European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIH) Networks.
• Finland has produced INSPIRE Download services using the OGC API Features standard and related Good Practices. These services provide INSPIRE datasets in GeoJSON format: Statistics Finland’s INSPIRE services and INSPIRE Simple Addresses by the National Land Survey of Finland.
• Some datasets have been removed from network services due to national security decisions by the National Council for Geographic Information.
• In recent years, the INSPIRE Secretariat has supported more than 100 data providers in the transition to use version 2.0 of INSPIRE’s Metadata Technical Guidelines and in tagging the High-Value Data Sets.
• Please note that Finland has decided to include all “as is” datasets in the harvesting to the INSPIRE Geoportal, which affects the monitoring results.

Conformity of INSPIRE metadata	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024
Share of conformant dataset metadata	27,5 %	43 %	55 %	75 %	97 %	95 %
Share of conformant service metadata	1 %	18 %	44 %	86 %	100 %	98 %

Figure 1. Progress in conformity of metadata between 2019 and 2024.

Functioning and coordination of the infrastructure

• There are around 350 public providers of spatial data that are obliged to implement INSPIRE in Finland. These are from local, regional, and state governance.

• Data providers choose the software and hardware they need for publishing data and services.

• The main public spatial data providers are 16 state authorities, e.g., National Land Survey, Finnish Environmental Institute, Meteorological Institute, Geological Research Centre, Finnish Transport Agency, Natural Resources Institute Finland, Statistics Finland, Digital and Population Data Services Agency, Finnish Transport and Communications Agency, Digital and Population Data Services Agency.

• On the regional level, there are 18 regional councils which provide land use plans and autonomous Åland province.

• There are 309 municipalities in Finland, and those are also obliged to implement the INSPIRE Directive. Some of them lack resources, but they are actively involved in the National SDI as producers of metadata, data and services.

Usage of the infrastructure for spatial information

• The use of geographic information has grown in recent years, mainly due to the increased public availability of information and the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive. The spatial infrastructure for searching, viewing, and downloading has improved the accessibility of spatial data and has raised public awareness. The growth in use of view and download services has been significant.

• Broad access to spatial information is provided to the users by many different map services, web applications serving specific use cases including municipal maps, routing and planning services, nationwide routing services, geography education, public points of interest, cultural heritage, agricultural applications and environmental applications. Examples are:
  • the National Geoportal Paikkatietoikkuna. Paikkatietoikkuna provides a map interface, where the user can access and use over 3,000 map layers in a comprehensive way offered by about 70 national data provides. The geoportal is developed as open-source code on the basis of the established geographic reference architecture and is available for reuse supporting a wide range of user interfaces and map publication. The geoportal is used daily by 3000-6000 different users.
  • the National Discovery Service: Paikkatietohakemisto. There are 2,000 published metadata in the National Discovery Service by 300 different users. About 850 of published metadata describe INSPIRE datasets and services.
  • the national INSPIRE registry: INSPIRE-rekisteripalvelu
  • the national codelist: Luettelopalvelu
  • the GIS portal of National Land Survey of Finland Karttapaikka
  • the GIS portal of Statistics Finland: Tilastokeskuksen karttapalvelu
  • the GIS portal of Finnish Environmental Institute: Liiteri
  • the GIS portal on Finnish heritage Agency: Museoviraston museoverkko
  • the GIS portal of Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency: Suomen väylät

• Many of these map services are based on Oskari software which is an open-source platform originally developed for Paikkatietoikkuna.

• Access to spatial data has improved, and the reported use of data has increased. The increasing use of geographic information has also encouraged data providers to improve the quality of the data and develop data products and services that are better suited to user needs. Spatial information industry companies also played a significant role in promoting the use of spatial information, e.g. Finnish Location Information Cluster, a consortium of geospatial information sector companies offering spatial information services.

Data Sharing Arrangements

The opening up of public information has continued, and most of the nationwide INSPIRE datasets are open. For the conditions of use, a broad international CC BY 4.0 License applies (Creative Commons license), significantly simplifying the use of the data in different member states and by EU institutions.

Environmental data have been open to the public since 2008. The National Land Survey opened the terrain data in 2012. After that, many other authorities, including the largest municipalities, have opened or are planning to open data for free re-use.

For fee-charged data, the tariff developed by each authority applies.

Costs and Benefits

Costs

The costs regarding the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive vary between actors and are difficult to estimate. According to surveys conducted in 2016 and 2019, the key causes of costs can be summed up as:

• establishment and maintenance of network services, procurement of software, preparation of metadata, information harmonisation (estimated costs between 2013-2015: EUR 4.4 million)
• coordination, support, training, monitoring and development of centralized systems (estimated costs between 2013-2015: EUR 3.4 million).  sts between 2013-2015: EUR 4.4 million) *** coordination, support, training, monitoring, and development of centralized systems (estimated costs between 2013-2015: EUR 3.4 million). 

Benefits

According to a survey conducted in 2020, the key benefits can be summed up as:

• INSPIRE showed the purpose and benefits of standard APIs
  • Open APIs from as-is spatial datasets
• Spatial datasets have been described and can be easily found
  • Increased understanding of existing data sources
• Finnish geoportal Paikkatietoikkuna with 3000 map layers from 70 data providers visualises concretely the benefits of interoperability of spatial data.
  • Easier access to data
  • Increased (re)use of data
  • Increased discoverability and availability of data 
  • Increased quality of data
  • Better conditions have been created for decision-making
• Oskari software which is an open-source platform originally developed for Paikkatietoikkuna. Oskari is used in several organisations in Finland and worldwide.
• Implementation of INSPIRE has advanced the opening of spatial data and created technical means to use open data.
  • More services for citizens are being developed
• Development of networks
  • Increased cooperation between actors

Key facts abd figures

Key facts and figures from monitoring 2024 can be found at: https://inspire-geoportal.ec.europa.eu/mr/mr2024_details.html?country=fi