FinnGen Sandbox is now a certified secure operating environment

FinnGen data analysis environment, FinnGen Sandbox, is now one of the few certified secure operating environments in Finland. The certificate was granted on 20th April 2022 and is valid for five years.

A padlock on top of a graphical visualisation of data.

Image: Pete Linforth/Pixabay

Information security certification is required of all operating environments that are used to analyse data sets for the purposes specified in the Act on the Secondary Use of Health and Social Data that are subject to a data permit. The requirements are based on a regulation of the Health and Social Data Permit Authority (Findata).

An authorized information security auditor company inspected the operating environment and issued a certificate of conformity with the requirements. The FinnGen Sandbox audit took place between August 2021 and April 2022. Several updates were implemented during the audit and no major nonconformities were left outstanding at the end of the audit. The certificate was granted on 20th April 2022 and is valid for five years.

Overall, the development of secure analysis environment has been a very important project for the FinnGen study. Several million euros have been invested, and it has taken many years to build the environment and complete the certification process.

The National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health (Valvira) keeps public database of regulatorily compliant secure operating environments registered by service providers. By now, a total of eight audited secondary-use environments are registered. FinnGen Sandbox was the fourth to be approved and there are no pending nonconformities that should be fixed.

FinnGen in brief

FinnGen is a large public-private partnership aiming to collect and analyse genome and health data from 500,000 Finnish biobank participants. FinnGen aims on one hand to provide novel medically and therapeutically relevant insights but also construct a world-class resource that can be applied for future studies.

FinnGen is one of the very first personalized medicine projects at this scale and the public-private collaborative nature of the project is exceptional compared to many ongoing studies. FinnGen brings together Finnish universities, hospitals and hospital districts, THL, Blood Service, biobanks, FINBB and international pharmaceutical companies and hundreds of thousands of Finns. Because collaboration is the key to achieving breakthroughs in disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, we welcome everyone on this journey into our shared heritage.