The Student Union of the University of Eastern Finland
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The Student Union of the University of Eastern Finland
20.02.2025
Newsletters (Weekly Feed in English and Wiikko-Ärsyke in Finnish) of the Student Union of the University of Eastern Finland (ISYY) have been on a publishing break due to technical challenges since 21 January 2025. First news about challenges were published on ISYY’s website on 28 January 2025. These technical challenges were related to Student Union’s newsletter template and its features, which have been in use since 2016.
Thanks to an observant person and their notice, it was discovered that the old newsletter template included a tracking pixel, which is a commonly used analytic technique in email letters. This tracking pixel has allowed Student Union to follow numerical statistics of opening times of newsletters on a general level, and with that information it has been possible to evaluate the importance of newsletters as a form of communication.
While investigating this matter it has come to our knowledge that this tracking pixel has saved information about the receiver’s IP address and time of opening the letter in addition to which links the receiver clicked. The Student Union does not need this information, and the saved information of the receivers has not been used nor opened by anyone. We want to highlight that outsiders have not got access to any personal information of the receivers. Only the ISYY staff members who work with the newsletters have access to the newsletter service.
A preliminary notification about the matter has been made to the national supervisory authority (The Data Protection Ombudsman) on 23 January 2025 and the notification has been updated on 18 February 2025. The Student Union has ordered a data erasure from the service provider which will delete all information of the newsletters’ receivers, has updated the privacy policy regarding the newsletters and has ordered a new newsletter template from which all tracking analytics have been removed.
The Student Union apologises for what has happened. We take the matter seriously and will update our practices and ensure that this does not happen again.
Hannele Mirola, Secretary General (substitute until 28.2.2025), Student Union of the University of Eastern Finland (ISYY), paasihteeri(at)isyy.fi, tel. +358 44 576 8417
Ville-Pekka Timonen, Chairperson of the Representative Council, Student Union of the University of Eastern Finland (ISYY), epj(at)isyy.fi, tel. +358 44 576 841
Helena Eronen, Data Protection Officer, Student Union of the University of Eastern Finland (ISYY), tietosuojavastaava(at)isyy.fi, tel. +358 50 576 0282
Announcment updated on 20.2.2025 at 12.46, contact information of Data Protection Officer added.