According to the Post, the purpose of the coming change is to improve the service. Profiling will automatically be introduced unless it is specifically opposed.
Post’s Privacy Policy will be updated in May. Tiina Somerpuro
Post’s announcement of users profiling and advertising ads has aroused irritation in online discussions. Tivi asked the Post in more detail what the change was about and how it affects customers.
The renewed privacy statement for Posti’s electronic consumer services will enter into force on 20 May 2025.
According to Post’s communications, Post’s own advertising is expected to meet the needs of customers in the future. If the customer is already a user of the Ompost service, he or she will not be unnecessarily shown advertising to new users. As an individual profiling service, a suitable pick -up point may be proposed for the customer based on his or her previous choices.
Updating the privacy statement does not mean increasing the amount of advertising.
The Privacy Statement was updated to “better serve customers who registered as a consumer service user of the Postal Consumer Services and provide more personalized services and content to the customer”. Thus, profiling only applies to consumer users registered in Post’s digital services.
Online discussions have wondered about the arrangement whereby Posti announces that it will automatically enable all customers, but if they wish, customers may refuse profiling. According to people, the post office could have asked for permission and enabled profiling for consenting users.
Postal communications were responsible that the profiling or anticipation of persons, ie analyzing or anticipating people, does not require the consent of the client, but that the general market practice is to use the legitimate interest of the registrar as the basis for processing personal data. Direct marketing is one possible reason for the legitimate interest, but the customer has the right to oppose, ie prohibiting profiling for direct marketing purposes.
– We give our customers a wider choice because they can completely prevent profiling. As far as marketing is concerned, the choices for this are fully based on the customer’s consent, the mail is communicated.
A common way in the field
The mail does not consider the information visible on the package to be sensitive. Also, it is not about following a letter mail, just package traffic.
– This is not about Post’s postal business, that is, providing a statutory universal service, nor for monitoring mail traffic or letter mail. The update is related to parcel services. In package services, we work in a similar position as other service providers. Service providers generally do profiling on the basis of the so -called legitimate interest and target advertising on the basis of profiling. In order to provide our customers’ services, we also need to do profiling. Post’s electronic consumer services are completely voluntary, people living in Finland are not automatically covered by that service, justifying the communication of the post office.
However, the instructions of the Data Protection Officer emphasize that “the processing of harmless individual information on a large scale and combining, may lead to more individual and sensitive information on the data subject.”
However, in online discussions, people are worried that when data senders are collected to profile a person, it can reveal information, for example, of his or her illness or sexual preferences. The name and industry of the transmitting company can reveal to outside parties, such as the Post, what is likely to be in the package and what kind of person receives such broadcasts.
According to Posti, updating the Privacy Statement is not related to the result -based direct marketing service to be launched with Punamusta.