Year 2024 through the eyes of Supo employees

National security must be protected around the clock on every day of the year. Over 580 Supo staff members do this work in offices, in the field and online – throughout Finland and also abroad. In this annual digest, six Supo employees share some thoughts on their busy working year.

Ilkka Hanski, Head of Vetting: "We have worked to improve the quality of vetting"

With a significant rise in the number of investigations, this has been another busy year for the Vetting Department. Long-sustained growth finally saw the number of investigations exceed one hundred thousand for the first time this year, with a total of some 114,000 investigations completed.

While this growth has been affected by new legislation in recent years, Supo has also consistently worked to enlarge the scope of vetting to include all key operators. Discussions have been held with organisations that are already involved in the vetting procedure to ensure that all correct functions are also security vetted.

We have also worked to improve the quality of vetting. Standard vetting procedures increasingly involve investigating foreign interests. A greater number of personal interviews are also conducted.

The average duration of the vetting procedure has shortened as we improve our processes, reducing the threshold at which organisations decide to use vetting. The impact of our work is evident in a client satisfaction score of 95 per cent achieved in a survey conducted last year. Some 97 per cent of our clients considered vetting important for their organisations.

The Supo Vetting Department also issues opinions on residence permits, naturalisation and visa applications. The number of such opinions has also grown. They enable us to help ensure that individuals who jeopardise national security do not enter Finland.

A Supo staff member working in surveillance: "We are often present outdoors, where people are"

I have been working for some years in the surveillance duties that are the core of Supo intelligence gathering. Surveillance refers to covert observation of an individual or group in order to reveal important information and protect national security.

Acquiring unique intelligence that is not otherwise available is the mission of Supo. Independent intelligence gathering process by Supo is essential in this regard.

We are often present outdoors, where people are. With intelligence targets seeking to operate professionally and covertly, we have to outplay them at their own game. Even though online information gathering has become increasingly important, a great deal of intelligence must still be acquired in the real world.

Our work is challenging and calls for perseverance. Intelligence gathering operations can be time-consuming, with the actual results only coming to light after some years. We also recognise that our work provides only one piece, with multiple players involved in assembling the larger jigsaw puzzle of civilian intelligence.

Our past year has also been exceptionally busy. We have applied intelligence methods in a wide range of ways, acquiring information of significance for national security.

The year has also been stressful for our staff, combining a large workload with an uncertain economic situation. Staff members have been concerned about whether we will be able to continue working in this way with diminishing finances. The presence of Supo in protecting society requires human resources.

Teemu Liikkanen, Head of Counterintelligence: “We must find new ways to combat espionage”

I took up the position of Head of Counterintelligence at the beginning of September 2024. Even though I was already expecting a challenge, I was still surprised by how busy we were, and by the sheer volume of duties and information involved.

This is a job where you deal with truly major issues and responsibilities. Matters of espionage and influencing that target Finland are not confined to Supo alone, but concern the whole country. They also make this work interesting and rewarding, especially when we succeed.

While not always glamorous, the importance of this work is never lost on us. Much like many forms of specialist work, it involves attending many meetings, and a great deal of reading, studying, and writing.

As Head of Counterintelligence, I seek to make our work increasingly proactive. Russia has traditionally engaged in human intelligence under diplomatic cover, but this has now become significantly more difficult. Our adversary has accordingly been forced to find new ways of acquiring intelligence, and we must in turn also find new ways of combating espionage. Ideally we will be able to anticipate the plans of our antagonist before they can be implemented.

Evolving conditions and complex threats mean that we must continually enhance our operations. My contribution will hopefully include helping to break down barriers and enhance cooperation between departments.

Counterintelligence is a traditional core function of Supo. Reforms must be implemented with respect for history and the preservation of aspects that are worthwhile.

Cyber intelligence officer: “Crazy-sounding solutions might just lead you in the right direction”

My job description involves gathering information from various data networks. Our team serves in the manner of a corporate service specialised in applying various online information gathering and intelligence methods.

Our days vary greatly, depending on information gathering needs. We may collect information about Russia on Monday, but then change the subject to counterterrorism on Tuesday. With duties covering the entire scope of Supo, I cannot say that any single theme dominated our work last year. Obviously we are continually engaged with signals from the East. This is work done to order, as the Internet never sleeps!

Open sources are an important starting point for almost all of my work. Information from open sources may be compared with intelligence gathered by other methods, or from such sources as other official registers. Open source intelligence is an excellent tool for guiding the use of intelligence methods proper. We employ certain intelligence methods in our own unit while supporting other units in their specialisms.

Our team broadly represents three types of expertise. Our police detectives are good at piecing together jigsaw puzzles, whereas we also include people who are proficient at various languages (most notably Chinese, Russian and Arabic), and naturally also IT specialists. It is unusual to find an individual who combines all of these talents.

We work closely with subject specialists, training them in using open sources. For example, an analyst who specialises in China may take a very different view of information gathered.

My work is characteristically quite independent, with nobody offering advice on how to approach an assignment, as a very wide range of methods may be effective. On the other hand, team support can be invaluable when you have been struggling with some problem for a long time. A colleague with a fresh perspective may well notice something that you missed. It is surprising how often a colleague comes up with some amusing, imaginative, and crazy-sounding solution to a problem that ultimately helps you get on the right track.

Intelligence work always involves various mental biases that professionals should be aware of. One well-established mental bias of online analysts is the idea that someone must have already noticed something, so it's not worth reporting on. Practical experience has nevertheless taught us that it is always worth speaking up on suspecting that you have found something that may be of interest to Supo. The best part of my job is that even the tiniest nugget of data unearthed by our team may stimulate other information gathering.

Cyber intelligence can sometimes feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. Or as we put it: like trying to find a little log cabin on a map of the world. But we nearly always succeed!

Head of International Affairs: “International cooperation is a key capability of Supo”

The threats that affect Finland have grown more complex in recent years, with repercussions potentially felt even from more distant crises. International exchanges and comparisons of information help us to analyse the operating models, interdependencies and trends of threat factors, and so international networks and cooperation are becoming increasingly important in our intelligence work.

International cooperation is a key capability of Supo, providing a means of exchanging unique information. For example, the intelligence that we acquire through international cooperation is an essential part of our high-quality reporting to top-level government.

It is evident from the growing volume of correspondence that Supo has engaged increasingly in international cooperation. This is part of the daily routine at Supo, and is pursued extensively in various departments.

Besides bilateral intelligence exchanges, cooperation forms part of the work with multilateral forums such as NATO, which has provided an effective addition to our international cooperation. NATO cooperation has become a stronger and more established part of the work of Supo over the current year. This cooperation with the alliance is not only an opportunity, but also an obligation, with Supo taking charge of aspects related to civilian intelligence in Finland that are its specialist field.

The diversification of non-military influencing and threats in recent years is also evident in the content of NATO cooperation.

International cooperation at Supo is typically a hectic activity that changes daily, as the variables of the security environment and of foreign and security policy do not usually adhere to precise geographical or time zone boundaries.

Susanna Kallonen, Systems Manager: “Our ICT people face a tough job”

Working in ICT typically involves working with various stakeholders to solve difficult and complex technical and process-related problems. This is also the case for us at Supo in 2025.

While a challenging economic situation has also added further difficulties recently, we have managed to make progress in some important system development projects, including the Inter project launched with EU funding to bring about modern tools and artificial intelligence features that support data analysis in key Supo information systems.

This project seeks to boost work efficiency and improve the quality of working processes. Supo is hoping that development packages of this kind will further improve its analytical capabilities. The work is helping to transform Supo into a fully fledged intelligence service that is prepared to process growing volume of information.

We are roughly halfway through this project, which has so far largely achieved its measurable milestones and is progressing on schedule. One already completed element of the project is a work platform that enhances collaboration between analysts. We are now advancing to implement tools that apply artificial intelligence.

The extensive IT infrastructure work required for new Supo premises has also called for significant effort from the ICT team as we prepare our move to a new address in 2025. Everything must be in place to ensure that our systems work and routines can continue smoothly after the move. Also in this huge project, our people have demonstrated their excellent professionalism.

The special features of our sector also impose particular requirements when developing our information systems, adding unique complexities to the process. Our ICT people face a tough assignment in developing and maintaining numerous systems and their underlying infrastructure and hardware. These duties have been vigorously discharged with a view to matching the rapid progress of ICT development in general.

We have cause to be grateful to our highly skilled and diligent ICT staff for these successes, as they resolve these complex problems on a daily basis and help to ensure the continuity of our core operations.