Information on changes to pseudonyms

Research Services will establish a new temporary storage drive in FIONA to support the replacement of pseudonymous identifiers.

The drive will be labeled X: and will be introduced during the summer. The exact date will be announced as soon as it is confirmed, with the aim of making the space available as soon as possible.

The X drive will be available until the end of the year, at which point the transition period for replacing pseudonymous identifiers will also end.

Deployment of the storage space

Project-specific folders will be created on the X drive. Read and write access will be restricted to users of the respective project.

• Folders will be created only upon request.
• Requests should be sent to: tutkijapalvelut@stat.fi
• The message must include the FIONA project identifier as well as a request for additional storage space for pseudonym replacement.

Registration is open immediately. The first batch of requests will be delivered to FIONA administration on approximately 4 June, but requests may also be submitted after this date.

Purpose of the X drive

The X drive is intended exclusively for the replacement of pseudonymous identifiers. It must not be used for other work or for general data storage.

Instructions for replacing pseudonymous identifiers

1. Retrieve the new identifiers for the data stored on the D drive:
   
   Source: link table in the folder D:/keys
   
   The old identifier is used as the key

2. Create a new dataset:
   
   Save the output file resulting from the extraction to the X drive

3. Carefully verify the dataset:

   • the new identifiers are included
   • the old identifiers have been removed

The researcher is responsible for the correctness of the dataset, so this verification must be performed with particular care.

Use and release of storage space

The X drive capacity is shared between projects. To ensure smooth service for all users:

• Verify the quality of the new dataset version immediately
• Then request Research Services to transfer the dataset to the D drive
• Once the dataset has been transferred, delete it promptly from the X drive

The simultaneous storage usage per project is limited to a maximum of 500 GB.

It has been observed that the old protection method has, in some cases, assigned the same pseudonym to different values of a variable. In practice, this issue primarily affects rare pseudonyms used in individual projects.

Problems in combining old and new identifiers

The replacement of pseudonyms has also weakened compatibility in the widely used protected business ID variable (syrtun). Problems have emerged in situations where the business ID variable contains values other than a business ID: in such cases, the link between the old and new pseudonym may not work properly for atypical identifiers. This occurs, for example, with self‑employed persons whose identifier—in particular in older datasets—is a personal identity code instead of a business ID.

An inconsistency has been identified in the conversion of the pseudonymised identifiers to the new identifier for the OID variables in the EDUC_TYHR, EDUC_ESIPERUS, and EDUC_OPISK ready-made datasets. This inconsistency affects the compatibility of these datasets’ OID variables with the OID variables of other datasets.

The issue related to business identifiers particularly affects ready‑made datasets containing business IDs. Research Services is reviewing the datasets and aims to implement corrective actions as soon as possible. Additional information will be provided on this webpage.

Differences between the old and new pseudonymisation methods may lead to situations where data protected with the two methods cannot produce fully identical research results. This is especially important for projects that have a research article currently in the publication process.

If datasets protected with the old pseudonyms do not need to be linked with data protected using the new identifiers, there is no need to adopt the new pseudonyms. In cases where transitioning to the new identifiers is necessary, but datasets protected with the old method are still required, an exception arrangement can be made. In such cases, Research Services can provide a separate folder in FIONA where the necessary code, auxiliary files, and, if needed, datasets can be stored.

If a project needs to retain datasets protected with the old identifier — for example, to ensure the reproducibility of results for a study currently in the publication process — it must send a notification to Research Services by email no later than 30 June 2026. The notification must include the following information:

• title of the publication
• the W‑drive folder containing the files necessary for result replication
• the current stage of the publication process
• the date until which replication is needed

The project commits to deleting the contents of the folder once the stated deadline has passed.

Re‑pseudonymising datasets consumes disk space, and this may cause problems especially if a project uses large datasets that need to be re‑protected.

Research Services will provide free additional storage space to projects from the summer until the end of 2026. The additional space can be requested by notifying Research Services of the need.