The Nordic archives have a strong and growing partnership in recent years. The Nordic archives have regular meetings of the archivists, and once a year they are joined by other members of their Council of Directors. The Nordic archives have a number of topics on which they discuss, and this year security was at the forefront.

The Danish authorities presented the criteria for the new risk assessment of their national archives for their paper collections, which is based on the same criteria as the risk assessment for digital collections.

Finland discussed the role of the National Archives in state contingency planning for possible crises or threats, including war. Finland pointed out that there is rarely enough cooperation and consultation between those who develop national defence policies and those who preserve their cultural heritage.

The Norwegians also discussed ways to ensure the security of the national archives, as well as paper and digital resources. The Norwegians pointed out that in today’s digital environment, it is likely that no major power will be prevented from viewing data from other countries, but hopefully it will be possible to block others from viewing or deleting data.

Sweden discussed emergency plans and how to respond if archives cannot be protected on site. Transfer or distribution of archives to multiple sites requires an assessment of the priorities and importance of the data and in some cases it may be necessary to destroy particularly important data that cannot be transferred to other countries.

Iceland’s contribution to the discussion on security issues was a discussion on environmental threats. Recent experiences of the National Archives of Iceland’s response to the Reykjanes disaster and the landslides in Seyðisfjörður and important lessons learned from them.

Following the discussion and discussion on security issues, the entire group participated in workshops on the social impact of archives, but in the recent past there are two main focus areas:

• Archive supports democracy

• Trust in the public in the digital world is guaranteed

In the context of the new focus of European policy, five issues were discussed:

• Security in an increasingly insecure Europe

• Social responsibility of archives

• Potential of artificial intelligence in the functioning of archives

• Research collaboration between archives and other institutions

• New possibilities for funding archives and their projects

The results of the workshops will be submitted in a report to the State archivists.

Security issues discussed by Immo Aakkula from the Finnish National Archives.