Valtion turvallisuus ja asiakirjasalaisuus

Authors

• Timo Konstari

Abstract

The making public or keeping secret of official documents is regulated by law in Finland. According to the main rule, official documents are public. In interpretation the borderline between public and secret documents is very unclear. The status of secret documents is different in different ministries, in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defence and in some departments of the Ministry of Interior the status of secret documents is very important. In fact, secrecy is the main rule and publicity is the exception on these areas of public administration. New technology, e.g. the utilization of computer based data archives, makes it even more difficult to interpret the borderline between secret and public documents. The making public of all official documents is out of the question. Nevertheless, the area of public documents should be enlarged.