FICORA will be taking an especially close look at email services that store messages on servers abroad. In these cases, privacy issues may be beyond Finnish legal jurisdiction.
According to Jarkko Saarimäki, FICORA's Chief of Security Supervision, the authority will ask Finnish telecommunications companies to give notice of what types of services they provide in cooperation with international partners.
"Do they have an impression of whether the information security of their services is endangered by a possible surrender of data?", is the question Saarimäki says is being posed.
Saarimäki notes that operators outside of Finland apply their own national regulations.
"It is considerable more difficult for Finnish officials to have a say in such cases," Saarimäki points out.
Viitanen: international cooperation required
Finland's Minister of Housing and Communications Pia Viitanen described the issue of online information privacy as one that requires international cooperation and a discussion of the rules. She stressed that claims of a large-scale American telephone and internet surveillance programme highlight an international problem that brings into conflict the protection of privacy and national security.
"It is important that we find out in more detail what kind of surveillance is in question and how it affects national protection of privacy," Viitanen stated in a release on Monday.
Viitanen emphasized that surrendering data from Finland for the purpose of online surveillance is against the law.
"Compliance with the law is overseen by the Data Protection Ombudsman and the Communications Regulatory Authority. It is their job to clarify, for example, legal issues related to Google's data centre in Hamina, if any arise," said Viitanen.