25 March 2019 

 

The data warehouse for early childhood education and care (Varda) is a new national data warehouse to be launched on 1 January 2019. It will contain information on early childhood education and care actors and units, children attending early childhood education and care, the children’s custodians and ECEC personnel. Provisions on the data warehouse are contained in the Act on early childhood education and care. The data warehouse will be used to promote the development of early childhood education and care and facilitate decision-making, to compile statistics and carry out research on this field, and to perform official duties. The data warehouse will be maintained by the Finnish National Agency for Education.  

Under the Act on early childhood education and care, municipalities and joint municipal authorities will have an obligation to upload data on ECEC organisers and units as well as children's data in Varda as from 1 January 2019. The data to be uploaded contain personal data on children attending early childhood education and care. This personal data on children comprise: 

 

• name, personal identity code, mother tongue, municipality of residence and contact details 
• the ECEC unit the child attends 

• submission date of the application 
• start and expiry dates of a decision or a contract 
• scope of the right to early childhood education and care in hours and information on the use of this right 
• indication that early childhood education and care is organised as non-standard hour child care 
• the form in which early childhood education and care is organised 

 Through the learner ID register maintained by the Finnish National Agency for Education, the following personal data of the data subject will also be linked to Varda: 

 

• name, learner ID and personal identity code or other similar identifying data, nationality, gender, mother tongue and the required contact details. 

 Our municipality/joint municipal authority will upload data from our operative ECEC information system to Varda through system integration/ from 1 April 2019.  

For more information on the data subject's rights related to Varda, see Pedanet: https://peda.net/orimattila/v  

Data on personnel and custodians will be saved to Varda as from 1 September 2019. The Finnish National Agency for Education and the municipality will inform the data subjects about the saving of personnel and custodian data at the latest in summer 2019.  

Further information: 

• Information for data subjects: https://peda.net/orimattila/v 
• National data warehouse for early childhood education and care Varda on the Finnish National Agency for Education’s web service  
  https://www.oph.fi/kehittamishankkeet/varda (in Finnish) and https://www.oph.fi/utvecklingsprojekt/varda (in Swedish) 
• Privacy statement for the national data warehouse for early childhood education and care (will be published in December 2018):  
  https://opintopolku.fi/wp/tietosuojaseloste/varda-palvelun-tietosuojaseloste/ (in Finnish) https://studieinfo.fi/wp/dataskyddsbeskrivning/dataskyddsbeskrivning-av-varda-tjansten/ (in Swedish) 

• Act on early childhood education and care (540/2018): https://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/alkup/2018/20180540