CHAPTER I CHAPTER III 1. the child’s parents were not married at the time of the child’s birth and the mother is not a Finnish citizen and “a) paternity has not been established; or b) the father is confirmed to be a citizen of a foreign country”; CHAPTER II The 2003 Nationality Act147 provides for Migri, the Finnish Immigration Service, to determine citizenship status at the request of a public authority or an individual. The Nationality Decree requires that relevant State agencies (the Digital and Population Data Services Agency or State Department of Åland) must submit a request to Migri to determine the nationality of a child born in Finland (and registered in the population information system), within three months of receiving information about the birth, in cases where: 2. the child’s parents were married at the time of the child’s birth and are neither Finnish citizens nor holders of another nationality in common; or CHAPTER VI However, the agencies are not required to request determination of the child’s citizenship status in the circumstances set out in (1) to (3) above, “if the information about the child’s citizenship entered in the population information system has been reliably verified in compliance with subsections 1 and 2 of section 19 of the Act on the Population Information System and the Certification Services of the Digital and Population Information Agency (661/2009)”. CHAPTER V 4. the child is a foundling (identity of parents is unknown), or their nationality is unknown (and the child not been found to be a citizen of a foreign State before reaching the age of five).148 CHAPTER IV 3. the parents of the child were married at the time of the child’s birth and are not Finnish citizens but are both citizens of the same other country; but the child does not automatically acquire the parents’ nationality under the other country’s law; or The impact of good practices in birth registration ANNEXES 57 RECOMMENDATIONS 147 Nationality Act, Finland/Ministry of the Interior, Act (359/2003, as amended), (entered into force 1 June 2003). 148 Ibid., Section 1. 149 See UNHCR, Good Practices Paper, Action 2, pp. 10-12; see also Mapping Statelessness in Finland, UNHCR, November 2014. CHAPTER VII As of August 2024, the nationality determination procedure was being used regularly. Information from 2017 indicated that approximately 1,000 nationality determinations were made for children each year. Several cases had been litigated, and courts had generally held in favour of recognizing potentially stateless children born in Finland as Finnish nationals.149