Cookie Policy

Online service data protection and cookies

This page explains the cookie policy of the welcome.hel.fi website, an online service maintained by the Helsinki City Executive Office. The Helsinki City Executive Office protects the privacy of the users of its online services in accordance with the Data Protection Act (2018), the EU General Data Protection Regulation (2016/679) and other applicable legislation.

The City Executive Office’s register of customer communication, marketing and event management

All of the City of Helsinki’s file descriptions:  https://www.hel.fi/helsinki/fi/kaupunki-ja-hallinto/hallinto/organisaatio/rekisteriselosteet

Cookies

A cookie is a small text file that the browser stores on your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. On this website, the term “cookie” also refers to other similar technologies. A website needs necessary cookies to function properly. However, this website may also use cookies that are not necessary for the site to function. We use these kinds of cookies for analytics, monitoring and marketing, and their absence does not prevent the web service from working. Such cookies may only be used with the consent of the user.

The cookie can be stored permanently on the user’s device, in which case the web page remembers the user when they return to the page even if the browser has been closed in between. In other cases, the cookie may be session-specific, which means that it is erased when the browser is closed.

The cookies can be first-party cookies or third-party cookies. As administrators of this website, we issue first-party cookies, while external parties issues third-party cookies.

Purpose of data collection

The website automatically collects the below data about visitors. We use this data to improve the user interface and user experience of the website and to monitor statistically the numbers of visitors. We do not hand this data over to external parties.

User data collected

The website uses cookies to maintain the user session. We do not collector record personal data identifying the user in the technical cookies.

The user has the possibility to prevent the use of cookies by changing the settings of their browser. However, the use of the website without cookies may affect the functionality of the pages.

We anonymise data collected for the visitor statistics of the service. This way the data cannot be connected to an individual person. This data includes:

  • the IP address used to access the city’s website
  • the time of accessing the service
  • the pages used in the service
  • the type of browser
  • regional location data, which cannot be used to identify the user.

Data transferred to other services

We do not transfer data to other services from this website. The pages might include content by service providers external to the city, such as embeds from map services or social media channels. The privacy protection of these channels and services is the responsibility of their owners.

Length of data storage

According to our cookie policy, we only store the collected data for as long as it is necessary for the purposes defined here. The stored data do not include unique personal data.