Vastuu Group won European Identity & Cloud Award 2021

Vastuu Group’s MyDataShare operator platform was awarded European Identity & Cloud Award 2021 in the Verifiable Credentials & Decentralized Identity category. European Identity & Cloud Awards was organized 14th time by the KuppingerCole in Germany, Munich. This is the third time Vastuu Group was granted the award.

MyDataShare is an operator platform that enables the transparent flow of personal information between systems as it digitalizes permissions needed for trust and convenience regarding personal data management. The city of Helsinki – a member of Open and Agile Smart Cities (OASC) – utilizes Vastuu Group’s MyDataShare as a MyData Operator and benefits from its mechanisms for personal data protection, transparency, and trust when using personal data. 

“Creating proactive human-centric services for residents is a central goal in City of Helsinki’s digitalisation programme. We collaborate with Vastuu Group and the cities of Espoo, Turku, and Oulu to ensure citizens’ transparency and better control on how their data is being used. Helsinki is an international forerunner in building human-centric services in line with the MyData principles”, says the City of Helsinki’s Chief Digital Officer Mikko Rusama. 

MyDataShare provides identity and permission management services for customers and end-users. It has been successfully taken into use by multiple customers from different vertical segments such as medical research, education, and employment as well as construction and maintenance of the built environment. 

“Intuitive, trustworthy, and human-centric services are essential for functional cities. With the continuous collaboration with Helsinki and MyData Global, we have been able to harmonize and refine MyData principles in practice to provide better services for residents. This collaboration has also led to taking further steps in interoperability by combining the related initiatives of both MyData Global and OASC”, says Vastuu Group’s Deputy CEO and MyData Leader Mika Huhtamäki. 

Helsinki uses MyData principles to empower citizens to specify terms of personal data use and utilizes it to simplify and unify the personal data access interactions within its vast array of digital services. In addition to using MyDataShare in multiple services internally, Helsinki explores the possibilities to efficiently and safely share data with other cities. 

As a concrete benefit to citizens, Helsinki automates daycare fee calculation based on the parents’ income level. Annually this concerns about 27.000 children, whose parents are requested to grant consent for direct verification of their income data from the National Income Registry. 

“We are happy to see MyData principles being adopted around the world. The collaboration between Vastuu Group and Helsinki is a unique example of this, and indeed a great accomplishment”, says Teemu Ropponen, MyData Global General manager. 
 
 

More information:  

Mika Huhtamäki 
Deputy CEO, Vastuu Group Ltd 
mika.huhtamaki@vastuugroup.fi 
+358 40 061 6253  

About Vastuu Group Ltd and MyDataShare: 

MyDataShare (Muntiedot.fi operator in Finland) is developed and operated by a Finnish Vastuu Group Ltd. Vastuu Group is a data and ICT service company developing public-private-people ecosystems initiated from Real Estate and Construction sectors grown to other trust demanding business areas. MyData is described in the recently published European data strategy as a promising initiative for empowering citizens through exercising their digital rights.  

• Open & Agile Smart Cities (OASC) is an international smart city network creating and shaping the global smart city data and services market. OASC is building the foundation for a global market where digital services can scale sustainably. 
• MyData Global is an award-winning international nonprofit organization. The purpose of MyData Global is to empower individuals by improving their right to self-determination regarding their personal data. It is based on the MyData Declaration. 
• The Findy consortium is a broad and unique organization based on public-private collaboration that is developing a common, shared and secure network of verifiable data.