Trivore and our very own Kari Mattsson were recently featured in Suomidigi, a website supporting and looking at the state of the digitalization of the Finnish public sector.
The article describes how HSL (the Helsinki Regional Transit Authority) has incorporated the national Suomi.fi and European eIDAS strong identification systems using the Trivore Identity Service (TIS).
The story, alas, is in Finnish only (it can be found here), but since has some useful information, we try to summarize some of the key points here.
Having strong identification information is crucial for the proper functioning of the system as the residents of the various municipalities in the HSL region get discounted tickets based on their place of residence. Being able to leverage national ID systems that have e.g. accurate address information allows HSL to provide the discounts easily and fairly. Discounted tickets have previously been limited to physical ticket products but with the help of TIP and the Suomi.fi service, HSL can now extend the discounts to mobile tickets, as well.
Riders from outside of Finland benefit from the pan-European eIDAS identification system support. Riders can be sure their information is handled appropriately (and following all relevant regulations) and they can ride on HSL knowing their information is secure. HSL is the first player in Finland to have a fully eIDAS compliant system and e.g. German eIDAS identification requests have been handled without any issues.
Niko Tynkkynen, the Digital Service Design Team Lead at HSL outlines the challenges of rolling out a system like this: “We have to be sure we handle the information of our more than one million riders in full compliance of GDPR rules, yet we also want to make sure the service experience is seamless across devices and services. We also want to bring new, increasingly personalized services and experiences to our riders.”
One further benefit of TIS is the ability to federate identities across different actors and services. The system e.g. enables using identities managed by the HSL system to be used for accessing public transportation services in Tampere – or any other city in Finland.
Should you be interested, you can read more about TIs on our product pages.