Many states make use of personal identity numbers (PINs) to govern people living in their territory and jurisdiction, but only a few rely on an all-purpose PIN used throughout the public and private sectors. This article examines the all-purpose PIN in Finland as a political technology that brings people to the sphere of public welfare services and subjects them to governance by public authorities and expert institutions. Drawing on documentary materials and interviews, it unpacks the history and uses of the PIN as an elementary building block of the Nordic welfare state, and its emerging uses in the post-welfare data economy. The article suggests that, although the PIN is capable of individualizing, identifying, and addressing individuals, its most important and widely embraced feature is the extent to which it enables interoperability among public authorities, private businesses, and their data repositories. Interoperability, together with advances in computing and information technology, has made the PIN a facilitator of public administration, state knowledge production, and everyday life. More recently, in the post-welfare data economy, interoperability has rendered the PIN a national asset in all the Nordic countries, providing a great advantage to biomedical research, innovation business, and healthcare.

许多州使用个人身份号码 (PIN) 来管理居住在其领土和管辖范围内的人们，但只有少数州依赖公共和私营部门使用的通用 PIN。本文将芬兰的通用 PIN 作为一种政治技术，将人们带入公共福利服务领域，并让他们接受公共当局和专家机构的治理。利用文献资料和采访，它解开了 PIN 作为北欧福利国家的基本组成部分的历史和用途，以及它在后福利数据经济中的新兴用途。该文章表明，虽然 PIN 能够个性化、识别和寻址个人，它最重要和被广泛接受的特性是它在多大程度上实现了公共机构、私营企业及其数据存储库之间的互操作性。互操作性以及计算和信息技术的进步使 PIN 成为公共管理、国家知识生产和日常生活的促进者。最近，在后福利数据经济中，互操作性使 PIN 成为所有北欧国家的国家资产，为生物医学研究、创新业务和医疗保健提供了巨大优势。