The reform of the Finnish Secondary Use Act entering into force on 1 May 2026 will change invoicing practices for datasets used for secondary purposes. Findata’s role as a centralised invoicing body will end, and data controllers will begin invoicing customers directly for costs arising from data extraction.
For invoicing, the decisive factor is the date of Findata’s decision. Findata will continue to manage invoicing centrally for decisions made before 1 May 2026. For data permit, amendment and data request decisions made after this date, invoicing responsibility will transfer to the data controllers.
Following the legislative change, Findata will no longer have the right to invoice on behalf of other data controllers.
In practice, customers will receive separate invoices from Findata and from each data controller whose data are included in the dataset covered by the data permit or data request.
Customers may submit their billing details to data controllers via Findata. However, Findata is not responsible for any errors or changes in the customer’s billing information.
Binding maximum cost estimates will be discontinued
After 1 May 2026, customers will no longer be provided with a joint estimate by data controllers and Findata of the maximum costs for data extraction and processing to which all parties are committed. However, we will request a voluntary, non-binding cost estimate from data controllers, along with an assessment of the feasibility of the data extraction, and forward this information to the applicant.
Cost estimates will not be binding for decisions made after 1 May 2026. This also applies to applications for which a cost estimate was issued before 1 May 2026.
The aim is that a lighter procedure will enable faster provision of estimates. The final cost of the dataset will in future be determined only at the stage of data extraction.
