A thesis is always a public document. This is based on the Finnish Constitution from 1999 (12 §), the Act on the Openness of Government Activities 621/1999 and the instructions given by the Ministry of Education and Culture 28 Jan 2004 Dnro 3/500/2004. According to the instructions from the Ministry of Education and Culture (2/500/2004), universities of applied sciences must take care of that confidential material is not included in the theses and that the theses are made public immediately after approval. In practice, the student makes sure that the thesis does not contain information that has been agreed on with the commissioner to be kept confidential.
If the thesis includes a confidential section, this is mentioned in the abstract. The confidential section that will remain with the commissioner in the end is included as a separate appendix. That confidential appendix is background material for the thesis and is not assessed.
The publicity of a thesis can be restricted only regarding the material that is prescribed confidential by law. Any decision by the university of applied sciences concerning the confidentiality of a thesis should be based on the Act on the Openness of Government Activities (621/1999). This act prescribes as confidential for example documents that contain business secrets (if the party the document concerns does not give permission to share the information). Possible cases of patents for inventions follow the legislation concerning inventions in institutions of higher education, as well as general patent legislation. Copyright issues are dictated by general copyright laws.
Finished and approved theses are uploaded in Theseus. Theseus has open collection side and restricted collection. Restricted collection is accessible from Centria network. Meta information (author, title, abstract etc) from restricted collection is accessible for every one.