Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo says that he is amazed at recent debate over a bill that would allow employers to extract contact information from employee e-mail.
In an interview with the economic journal Talouselämä on Friday, Kallasvuo sharply denies claims that Nokia would have threatened to leave Finland if the law on data protection of electronic communications is not changed. The proposed law has been dubbed Lex Nokia.
“We have no passions in this matter. I am very confused and surprised that this matter has risen to such a disproportionate level of significance. It would probably be good if this matter could be cleared up”, Kallasvuo says in an extensive interview in the magazine.
He does not want to overstate the importance of the bill from Nokia’s point of view.
“We have been placed in a completely unreasonable situation, in which one law has been named after us. We have not given it the name”, Kallasvuo says.
He dismisses claims of a threat by Nokia to leave Finland as absurd.
“There is no sense to it”, Kallasvuo says.
According to Kallasvuo, Nokia appreciates Finland and its Finnish employees.
He says that Nokia has no intention to move its head offices out of Finland, even though the head offices of many other technology companies are located in the United States.
