The effort has received funding from the EU.
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The Emergency Response Centre’s 112 Suomi app has around two million active users. File photo. Image: Vesa Toppari / Yle
The Ministry of the Interior wants to give the Emergency Response Centre Agency’s 112 Suomi smartphone app the ability to issue alerts about airborne threats.
“Finland is drawing on lessons learned from Ukraine in its development work, while also offering its strong civil defence expertise to Ukraine. This work has shown that Finland needs a more multi-channel warning system. In Ukraine, various mobile apps have been utilised, for example, to warn the population,” the ministry explained in a press release.
In Finland, issuing public warnings about airborne threats falls under the purview of rescue authorities. In recent years, in collaboration with the Finnish Air Force, the ministry said it has led the development of the warning system for those kinds of threats.
The Emergency Response Centre agency debuted the 112 Suomi app about six years ago. It currently has around two million active users, “and it is already used for different kinds of emergency warnings as well as other official communications”, the ministry said.
The app’s development project, which is scheduled to continue until the end of 2027, has received funding from the EU’s ‘Technical Assistance for Disaster Risk Management’ funding instrument.
“Finland has a long tradition of preparedness, and its development and maintenance are part of normal security work. Finland is not currently facing a military threat,” the ministry noted.