The Intelligence Process in Finland

Civilian and Military Intelligence Acts entered into force in Finland on 1 June 2019. With the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service and the Finnish Defence Intelligence Agency securing new statutory powers to collect and use information on both domestic and international threats to Finland’s national defence and security, these authorities have been transformed into combined domestic security and foreign intelligence services. The intelligence reform represents the most profound change ever made in the Finnish security sector, and it will have a major impact on the work of Finnish intelligence authorities in the years to come. How then is the Finnish intelligence organised as a process? This article aims to distinguish norms regulating the intelligence process from the vast intelligence legislation, and to organise this legal substance into four stages: (1) steering, (2) collection, (3) processing and analysis, and (4) sharing. The second objective is to identify areas of development in the intelligence process and suggest law and policy recommendations for the future.