KELA
Kela, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, provides social security for Finnish people in various life situations. In Finland, the purpose of social security is to guarantee people a sufficient livelihood and care in all life situations. Social security consists of services and financial benefits that secure a living. I personally dealt with Kela both as a personal customer and as an employer’s representative.
Currently, as a personal customer, I receive financial help from Kela every month in the form of child benefit for one child. In the past, I have received support from Kela for my studies and housing. When I had a child i received maternity allowance (now pregnancy allowance) and parental allowance and of course i get the maternity package before the child was borned.As the employer’s representative, I also apply for compensation and subsidies for the employer for example employees’ paid sickness absences and family leaves.
I have previously had a European Health Insurance Card issued by Kela, but it was no longer valid. Now I ordered a new cards for myself and my child and them should arrive in the mail within a couple of weeks. With the help of a European Health Insurance Card we can get necessary medical treatment receive, at the same price as the people living in the country receive it, if we suddenly get sick for example during our upcoming summer vacation trip.
MY KANTA
My Kanta services are very familiar to me and I think accessing them is very easy. On My Kanta Pages, I can see my own health information and prescriptions. I can also renew my prescriptions and save various treatment-related statements, or get an EU certificate of having a Covid infection. In My Kanta Pages I can also view the information of my child under 18 years of age. Logging to the account is really easy and you can do log online by using bank ID’s or a mobile ID’s, and the service itself is also very easy to use. I’ve used My Kanta service relatively a lot, especially for renewing prescriptions, and it’s great that health information can be found in one place so easily and the information is up-to-date and updated quickly.
KEVA
Keva is a Finnish public sector pension institution that administers the pensions of Finns. Keva did not give me pension information, but I got my pension estimate from Varma. My lowest retirement age is 67 years and 5 months, and I did not receive any kind of pension estimate at 63. However, my retirement goal is 69 years and 8 months, and the highest retirement age is 70 years. Currently, according to the calculation, my pension would be almost 1500 euros lower than my current salary if I work until the target retirement age. All this information can be found on Varma’s website easily by logging into the online service with, for example, bank ID’s. I’m not surprised that the amount of the pension is much less than my salary today, but on the other hand, I have so many years of work left before retirement that the amount of the pension can change a lot before that time.
DIGITAL SHOPS
These days online shops can be found for almost every needs. Some of these shops are reliable and some are not. I have used Booking.com and Trivago to book trips for my family. In my opinion both of these pages have worked just fine, but you have to be careful what services, for example the reservation, include. Often, the prices look considerably cheaper compared to the hotels’ own websites, but after a closer look it may turn out that the reservation booked through example Booking.com does not include breakfast at all. Also in terms of cancellation conditions, these reservation services are, in my opinion, way worse than the hotels’ own services.
Regarding online shopping, eBay and Amazon are already familiar to me on some level, but I don’t use them much, even though I think these services are relatively safe. I have bought some collectibles through eBay, because it is impossible to get them in Finland, but you have to be careful not to get scammed. On the other hand, nowadays you can get scammed also on Finnish sites like Tori.fi, where I myself have been deceived a couple of times. When you shop abroad, it’s good always to remember the difficulty of returning products, and you barelly can’t even find much information about these returns conditions. Also, product taxes, customs fees and postage information are often incomplete.
For the service from my own field I chose MepcoMatka –application. MepcoMatka is an application that we use to make travel and daily allowance applications related to business trips, as well as our account receipts correctly. I chose this application because it has only recently been approved for use to us and I am currently learning how to use it myself. You log in to the program with your own username and password. The program is published by Accountor, which is also our payroll and HR system provider. The program is very easy and the travel and daily allowance applications made with it go to payment with the approval of the supervisor without any other unnecessary manual entries or payments. The program is a good example of today’s digitization-enabled actions that can facilitate unnecessary manual work, for example in payroll and accounting.
DIGITALIZATION AND DIGITAL GAP
Digitization improves the availability of many products and services and makes it easier, for example, to communicate with family and friends. The endless development of digitization can also have negative effects and specially those who already have challenges with digitalization the future will bring more and more challenges. For this reason, in my opinion, basic services such as banks and health services should continue to be available also face to face.
My own parents are almost 70 years old and they have already challenges to survive in today’s world without help. For a long time they tried to get by without smartphones, but the community forced them to get ones, because even a bus ticket can no longer be bought as cheaply without an application for it. Thank good, they know how to use banking services and the Omakanta service on a computer independently, but I am constantly afraid that they will be tricked if they click on the wrong place, because they do not understand digital security in the same way as those who grew up in the middle of this digitalization development.
I find it funny to see that my son, who will soon to be five years old, uses for example a tablet much more fluently than my own parents. By following them, the digitization gap is clearly visible.
The availability of news and official information must also be secured by other ways than just via the web. Televiso’s live news broadcasts are constantly being cut, and I am concerned about the development where the older generation is completely excluded from news and world events.
DIGITAL COMPETENCE TEST
I took a test on digital skills and it shows that I generally have a pretty good understanding of various digital competence areas. The weakest overall area was safety and from there the share of data protection. I’m not sure if these results are real or if I’m just too skeptical. I handle a lot of employees’ personal data in my work, and I’ve learned that you can’t be too careful with them. For this reason, I also see more safety-related dangers than the average citizen and I am certainly more critical than many others in the test, especially when it comes to safety-related questions.
SELF REFLECTION
The pages of Kela and Kanta were already quite familiar to me. I have also used digital stores and I have noticed their good and bad sides. For me, the most interesting part of this assignment was digitalization and the digital gap, which made me think about today’s world and the future from the perspective of those citizens who find digitization challenging or scary. In my opinion, the discussion around this topic should bring up and make it possible to live without online stores and digital services in the future as well. Taking the digital competence test was interesting and made me think about my own digital behavior and especially my safety.
The other students’ texts were also very interesting and I commented the following blogs:
1. Taija’s site (https://blogi.savonia.fi/taijabrand/digi-citizen/)
Thanks for your interesting thoughts and especially for the very good and concrete example of the digital gap case. As a customer, I have noticed the same problem you mentioned. Especially older people who don’t know how to use digital appointments may have to wait their time on the spot for a really long time and I have noticed their frustration and wonder about that. Their wonder why others keep passing them and don’t understand the real thing that others have booked appointment.
I am concerned about this development and how this digital gap is growing all the time and putting citizens in a different position. When the understanding is still lacking, there will be even more questions and wondering in the future.
Lovely summer to you!
Jenni Kukkonen, https://blogi.savonia.fi/jennikukkonen/
2. Susanna’s page (https://blogi.savonia.fi/susannatienhaara3/digi-citizen/)
Thank you Susanna for your interesting and very comprehensively described thoughts. I agree with your thoughts about the possible challenges and problems with increase of digitization. Especially in healthcare, we should be able to secure equal treatment opportunities for all citizens, regardless of digital skills.
Dependence on the help of others, for example in accessing treatment and booking an appointment, does not sound reasonable. For example, how can we ensure that everyone receives this support if there are no relatives? How do we ensure that those who need help find help?
Lovely summer to you!
Jenni Kukkonen, https://blogi.savonia.fi/jennikukkonen/
3. Eeva-Maija’s Site (https://blogi.savonia.fi/eevamaija/digi-citizen/)
Hi,
and thank you for your text, it was nice to read. I especially liked your reflections, your personal experiences in the text and your interesting examples.
I share exactly the same thoughts with you what come to the online store Temu.com. I have visited their website a few times and after each visit I am always confused. I would not dare to order anything from them online store, even if I think the products are as they described and my friends support the store. I personally don’t want to know how they make the products and how bad the working conditions are for the workers.
Have a nice summer!
Jenni Kukkonen, https://blogi.savonia.fi/jennikukkonen/
This comment is intended for the DIGI CITIZEN section/
I completely agree with your thoughts on future pensions. In order for the pension to increase even slightly, one would have to work almost until the age of 70. That sounds quite wild. And as you mentioned, considering the responsibility and the mental and physical demands of the job, it seems like a daunting thought. I work in healthcare, and the idea of how people can continue to work in this field for so long and still be able to perform work that requires extreme precision, is quite worrisome.”
Your post offers a lot of valuable insights into the challenges and benefits of digitalization. I completely agree with your points about Kela and OmaKanta—they make managing healthcare so much easier, especially for renewing prescriptions. It’s also interesting how you highlighted the digital gap, especially with your parents’ experience. It’s true that older generations often struggle, while younger ones adapt naturally.
Your thoughts on online shopping are spot-on as well. It’s always wise to compare prices and check the fine details, like cancellation policies, especially when using platforms like Booking.com. The mention of digital security was great too—being cautious is so important in today’s world.
Do you think there are ways to better support those who find digital services difficult, like your parents, so they aren’t left behind?