Varkaus is a town of around 20,000 residents in Northern Savonia. The City of Varkaus made use of the free location data security services offered by the Location Innovation Hub to improve its cybersecurity.

Petri Kapanen, Geospatial Planner, City of Varkaus:

“We received an assessment and report on the visibility of our geospatial data and related security issues. Experts from the National Land Survey provided training for key personnel working with geospatial systems, and we were also given a roadmap on how to improve our geospatial data security.

We found the service extremely useful and received valuable guidance for the future as well. We’ve been reviewing our city's principles on public information to establish consistent practices, for example, in publishing decisions. We've also set up unit-level working groups to help implement geospatial security measures in day-to-day operations. In the future, we plan to organise annual training sessions for city staff on this topic.

The idea of openly sharing all information, which was common in the early 2000s, is no longer realistic. We highly recommend this service to other municipalities. It has really opened our eyes to how easily public information can be linked in ways that weaken information security. Staff are able to recognise critical elements and take care to exclude them when geospatial data is passed on.

Overall, the service fully met our expectations."

varkaus.fi/en

Want to find out more about the free services we offer to local authorities and small and medium-sized businesses to help them improve their information security and data protection? Read more and get in touch.

• Read our other client stories