Data Protection Ombudsman weighs risks of postal outsourcing
Most corporate enterprises in Finland have outsourced postal handing services. The Office of the Data Protection Ombudsman believes that outsourcing could include risks related to privacy issues.
More and more often, clients send mail to a company using its corporate address, but the letters are actually opened at the premises of a subcontracted mail processor and forwarded to the recipient in electronic form.
One-fifth of the mail addressed to companies first goes through the hands of a contracted service provider. Two-thirds of outgoing mail from companies does the same.
For example, the Osuuspankki Bank and the Pohjola insurance company have outsourced all of their mail. For Osuuspankki, the bulk of mail consists of client bank account statements, nearly three million of them a month.
The trend towards outsourcing has move so far and so fast that the Office of the Data Protection Ombudsman has worries about confidentiality. The level of risks involved will be the subject of a study to be carried out this summer.
