DIGI CITIZEN

KELA

KELA, short name of Kansaneläkelaitos in Finnish or Social Insurance Institution of Finland in English, provides a range of benefits and services to Finnish citizens, from students to pensionnaires. Residents of Finland can receive among other benefits unemployment, parental, sickness and disability benefits. Healthcare expenses are to some extent covered by KELA. Housing, family and students benefit aim to assist families and students in their daily lives.

I started to get familiarized with KELA services from the year I moved to Finland. The most benefits that I have received from then until today were maternity leave and student benefit. A European health care card I have since we move in Finland. The European health care card came into effect in 2004 and the card allows Finnish citizens and residents to have access to healthcare services in the country that they are travelling to. The European healthcare card does not cover private healthcare or non-urgent treatments neither repatriation costs, so a private travel insurance may be useful.

Omakanta

Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) and Kanta Services created a centralized digital platform called Omakanta in Finnish or MyKanta in English, for Finnish citizens to gain a quick access to their personal healthcare information. Personal health records such as laboratory tests results, medical history and vaccinations, or information on prescriptions are available to be viewed in MyKanta.

To access the page, one can change the language at the right corner up of the page.

Languages available are Finnish, Swedish and English. A fourth option is Other languages. The fourth option does not offer the possibility to have the site translate into another language, but it directs the individual to another page and brochures about MyKanta that are available in languages such as Arabic, Russian and Estonian.

To log in into the page, a green button with the text Log in to MyKanta is located in the middle of the top menu.

Online banking credentials, a mobile certificate, or an electronic ID card are needed to be able to log in in MyKanta.

There is also a possibility for foreigners to log in to MyKanta by selecting Identification methods for foreigners that can be located at the end of the page.

KEVA

Keva is a Finnish public sector pension provider and an earnings-related pension company. It is Finland’s largest pension provider.

Based on Keva’s pension calculator, at the age of 63 years old, the estimated pension that I will receive will be 895,45 euro. If I retire at the age of 68 years old, the estimated pension that I will get will be 1071,93 euro.

Digital shopping

Evaluating local shops to online or international online markets is a complex task. There are many factors that should be taken into consideration when the evaluation is done, but when we looked at only two aspects, reliability and prices, can be said that the evaluation does not need to be a complex one.

Reliability

Local shops gained through the years a reputation for reliability. They have their focus on customer services, quality products and community engagements. Most of the local shops prioritize long-term relationship with customers and fidelity programs for their members customers. Local shops may offer personalized products and services and some customers prefers face to face communication about their needs and wishes regarding certain products and services.

When it comes to sustainability and ethics, local shop can promote, sustain and prioritize ethical sourcing, social responsibility and sustainability much better than online markets.

One of the most beneficial factor of a local shop is that, through their existence they support local producers and engage in community initiatives. This way, local wealth is promoted, use of fossil fuels and plastic is reduced and local connections with other people are created.

Online markets’ reliability varies from country to country. Local regulations, business practices and cultural factors can be seen clearly in online shops and they can influence shops’ reliability. Some online markets can offer personalized products, but product diversity is more limited than in the local shops.

Sustainability and ethical consideration vary in online markets especially in international online markets. Some online shops have settled certain regulations regarding sustainability and ethical practices, while other online shops priorities different aspects of their businesses and did not assess within their business any sustainability or ethical goals or if they did they did not invest much time and effort on those topics.

Prices

Local shops may have a limited product diversity and therefore the prices may be higher than in online shops. Online shops can offer a wider range of products and they may have the possibility to offer cheaper prices due to lower production costs which enables competitive pricing. The prices on online shops’ products and services are determined by products’ quality and innovation, customer preferences and brand reputation. Local shops may offer certain discounts to member clients based on their fidelity program or have different season sales such as summer sales or location change sales.

Overall, in some cases physical shops’ offer more reliability than online shops while online shops offer more product diversity, lower prices and time convenience since they are open non-stop and there are no queues at the cashier.

My chosen reliable service is Amazon and Booking.com. I have been using Booking.com many times during our family trips in Europe. Even though I have not encounter any major problems such like reserving an accommodation place and when reaching the place to be cancelled or anything similar, I can say that the reliability of Booking.com may be based more on honest reviews of the customers and research of the places. We often chose places that provide pictures of the outside building so that we can check it with Google Maps and street view. Performing a research about the area where the accommodation is can also help the customer decide is the user of Booking.com that offers the accommodation for rent is reliable or not.

Regarding Amazon, I can say that I do not have much experience as an online user of it because I have order only twice through their online platform. Since the prices of the products were not that expensive, I did not put much time and effort on finding out how reliable Amazon is and what are their customers’ reviews. The products that I bought were much cheaper than in the local shops and one of them could not be found in Finland.

From my own working experience, the chosen service is KELA’s online platform. I chose KELA because working 100% remotely, there is much benefit of online platform when it comes to application of employers’ or employees’ benefit. They provide instructions in PDF format for different benefit applications and processing the application that were submitted online is faster than the desk and paper ones.

Digitalization and digital gap

Digitalization comes with many benefits and risks. Every individual has the right to choose the extent of digitalization impact in their lives based on their personal circumstances or preferences. However, when digitalization is used with limitation, several challenges or gaps can emerge.

Some of the gaps can be identified as information, communication, access, skills and efficiency gap. Challenges associated with a small degree of digitalization use are the limitation of online opportunities, difficulty in keeping up with technology or accessing certain services that are primary available through online platforms.

A limited use of digitalization creates gaps between those who use virtual services and those who prefer not to use them only if it is a must. They limit their access to a wide range on information such as educational resources and online databases that can offer a considerably opportunities for personal and professional growth. Limited digitalization can reduce individuals’ opportunity to stay connected with family and friends, and they may miss out cost-saving opportunities that come with the use of digital platforms.

Digital Competence Test

My job requires a high level of knowledge of safety, communication and information when it comes to digitalization since I work with very sensitive data.