4.13 The Population Register Centre established in 1969

The information collection system of church registers was also found to be in want of revision. This need coincided with the reform of census registration but it was also essentially connected with the revision of registers maintained by the church.

The committee set up for the revision completed its memo at the end of 1966 and its most important proposal was establishment of a person register containing the whole population. The information for this register would be partly collected in connection with census registration and it would partly contain the information in church registers.

This proposal for reforming population registration can be considered the most influential one since the start of regular collection of population information. The reform meant that all information on persons would be collected into one place where it would be readily available for statistics, for instance.

The committee also proposed establishment of a specific agency for the maintenance of the population register. The Population Register Centre was founded in 1969. In 1971 all permanent residents of Finland were included in a computer-based Central Population Register (the present Population Information System).

More information about the Population Information System is available at: www.vaestorekisterikeskus.fi