Why are the titles not in English?

Because the catalogue is published in Finland's official languages. Showing the titles as recorded is more honest than machine-translating them into something less precise.

Central government agencies, ministries, research institutes and a large number of individual municipalities, which is why the scale of the entries varies so widely.

Yes. It comes from avoindata.fi, Finland's national open data portal. Nothing is invented or simulated, and if the source cannot be reached the saver reports that instead of drawing something plausible.

Does it cost anything or need an account?

No. Every screensaver here is free, runs in the browser and needs no sign-up. This one uses a public API that requires no key.

Why are many titles in Finnish?

The catalogue is run in Finland by a Finnish agency and many publishers are Finnish public bodies, so entries are often described in Finnish. The portal itself is also offered in Swedish and English.

Who publishes the datasets?

Mostly government agencies, municipalities and other public administration organisations, although companies, associations and individuals can also publish.

Can I reuse the data freely?

It depends on the licence given on each dataset page. The terms are set per dataset, so check them before reuse.

Finland, Published Screensaver

The Finland, Published screensaver streams Finland's national open data catalogue in update order — roughly two and a half thousand datasets from ministries, agencies and municipalities. It runs in the browser with nothing to install; press ESC to exit.

How the Finland, Published screensaver works

The saver reads avoindata.fi, Finland's national open data portal.

No account and no key: the request goes straight from your browser, or from this site's own refreshed copy of the feed where the source does not permit browser access.

Values are drawn on a canvas that resizes with the window, so it works on a laptop or a wall display.

If the source is unreachable the saver says so on screen rather than showing stale numbers as though they were current.

Finland's open data catalogue

avoindata.fi is Finland's national open data catalogue, developed and operated by the Digital and Population Data Services Agency. Most datasets are published by government agencies, municipalities and other public administration organisations, though companies, associations and private individuals can also publish. The portal itself is available in Finnish, Swedish and English, and it is harvested by the European Data Portal.

It works as one place where citizen, journalist or developer can find what public bodies have chosen to share. The saver reads the catalogue listing, not the datasets themselves. Finland has two official languages, Finnish and Swedish, so titles on screen are often in Finnish, and a translation tool will get you most of the way.

Entries range from small tables to large geographic layers, and some are series that the publisher updates on a regular schedule, so a dataset may look recent while its content is older, or the reverse. The list reflects what organisations have chosen to share and is not a complete picture of public information. Licences are set per dataset, so check the terms on each dataset page before reusing anything.

A worked example

Each row gives a dataset title, the organisation that publishes it, when it last changed and how many files it holds. Titles appear in Finnish and Swedish as published. The mundane entries are the good ones — a town's purchase invoices, an alcohol licensing register, a chemicals code list — because that is what a functioning transparency regime actually produces.

Settings & tips

Accent and Background recolour the display without changing the data.
Add it to a Multi-view grid to watch it alongside other live savers.
Press ESC at any time to leave fullscreen.

Frequently asked questions

Why are the titles not in English?: Because the catalogue is published in Finland's official languages. Showing the titles as recorded is more honest than machine-translating them into something less precise.
Who publishes to it?: Central government agencies, ministries, research institutes and a large number of individual municipalities, which is why the scale of the entries varies so widely.
Is this real data?: Yes. It comes from avoindata.fi, Finland's national open data portal. Nothing is invented or simulated, and if the source cannot be reached the saver reports that instead of drawing something plausible.
Does it cost anything or need an account?: No. Every screensaver here is free, runs in the browser and needs no sign-up. This one uses a public API that requires no key.
Why are many titles in Finnish?: The catalogue is run in Finland by a Finnish agency and many publishers are Finnish public bodies, so entries are often described in Finnish. The portal itself is also offered in Swedish and English.
Who publishes the datasets?: Mostly government agencies, municipalities and other public administration organisations, although companies, associations and individuals can also publish.
Can I reuse the data freely?: It depends on the licence given on each dataset page. The terms are set per dataset, so check them before reuse.

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