Publicity, secrecy and privacy

Fredrik Lindahl (SD)

Madam Speaker! Today we are debating the motion report KU7 Public Access, Secrecy and Privacy. I will primarily focus on the part concerning the exchange of information between authorities and municipalities.

The Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act regulates secrecy between authorities and between independent branches of activity within the same authority. Exceptions are made through secrecy-breaking provisions regarding, for example, information on an individual's health status. These can be shared with social services if there is a need for care or support. General secrecy-breaking rules also allow for the disclosure of information if it is necessary for an authority's operations, or if the individual consents. Secrecy also does not prevent social services and healthcare from providing information to the police in cases of suspected crimes, particularly regarding crimes against young people or terrorist crimes.

A specific law from 2016 obliges certain authorities to share information in cooperation against organized crime.

Given the violent social developments, these issues are highly topical, and there are some new developments that have occurred during this mandate period. On July 1, 2024, the Act on the duty to report to counter incorrect payments from welfare systems as well as fraud, rule violations, and crime in working life entered into force.

The purpose of this Act is to simplify information sharing between relevant state authorities, municipalities, and unemployment insurance funds to ensure correct decision-making bases and reduce incorrect payments. Actors covered by the Act shall, as a rule, provide information both upon request and on their own initiative when such information is necessary for another actor's operations.

Incorrect payments are a societal challenge that not only costs taxpayers large sums but also undermines trust in our common welfare. The new law is expected to streamline the fight against crime in the labor market and prevent organized crime from exploiting our security systems.

As part of this reform, the Payment Authority's operations commenced on 1 January 2024. The authority has a central role in preventing, deterring, and detecting incorrect payments from our welfare systems. It also administers a new system with transaction accounts, which further contributes to preventing incorrect payments and economic crime.

To further strengthen the work of the Swedish Pensions Agency, the government has submitted Proposition 2024/25:45, which contains proposals for expanded obligations to provide information to the agency. The purpose is to make it simpler and more efficient for the agency to perform data analyses, audits, and selections. The legislative changes are proposed to enter into force on March 1, 2025, and the proposition is currently being prepared in the Committee on Finance.

The Government has also presented Proposition 2024/25:65, which aims to increase the flow of information to crime prevention. The proposal entails a new law that imposes an obligation on state authorities, municipalities, regions, and schools to provide information to the Swedish Police Authority and other crime-fighting authorities upon request and on their own initiative. Furthermore, amendments to the Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act are proposed, which give social services and healthcare expanded opportunities to share information for crime-fighting purposes. The new law and the legislative amendments are proposed to enter into force on 1 April 2025 and are being prepared in the Committee on Justice.

The Government decided on 19 October 2023 to appoint an inquiry with the aim of improving the possibilities for authorities to exchange information, particularly to prevent and combat fraud, incorrect payments, and crime. The inquiry has mapped the authorities' needs for improved information exchange and analyzed possibilities for disclosing confidential information, both upon request and on their own initiative. In August 2024, the inquiry submitted the partial report SOU 2024:63. In it, a general provision on the exchange of confidential information is proposed. The proposal has been subject to consultation and is now being prepared within the Government Offices.

The remaining work in the investigation includes an analysis of how public information can be shared more effectively between authorities and a review of the authorities' register regulations. The final report of the assignment shall be submitted no later than April 28, 2025.

It can be observed that a great deal is happening in this area right now. This reflects the high level of ambition in the cooperation that the Sverigedemokraterna has with the government in the form of the Tidö Agreement, including when it comes to working out measures to tackle and curb welfare fraud and organized crime.

With that said, I would like to vote in favor of the committee's proposal for a decision.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Susanne Nordström (M)

Madam Speaker! Today we are debating, as mentioned, KU7 on publicity and secrecy. I would like to begin by moving to approve the committee's proposal in the report.

In these issues, a focus on protecting children and young people from being drawn into crime is very important, if not decisive. It is required that schools, social services, the police, and other actors can cooperate to identify and support those in the risk zone at an early stage. This work is currently prevented by secrecy laws that are not quite adapted to today's reality.

Let me tell you how it could go - or rather, how it goes. Let's say there is a report of concern regarding a young boy. The report exists because he is in criminal circles. It is not acute, as he has not done anything illegal. The social worker who is handling the case knows that confidentiality may be breached in cases of serious crimes, but the assessment made is that it is not a matter of any serious crime.

In these contexts, however, it can go very fast. With a few button presses and a text message, there is a mission to shoot someone for a reward. It can go terrifyingly fast from the moment the young boy is just hanging out with criminals until that text message appears in his phone.

If the school, the police, and social services had the opportunity to share this information as early as at the first warning signs, it would be possible to intervene in time, before that SMS is sent. But that is not how it works today. The school may report that the boy is not doing anything wrong in the classroom, and social services have nothing to go on other than a report of concern. At the same time, the police hold knowledge that they are not allowed to share.

More puzzle pieces are needed than just those called edge pieces for the whole picture to become clear. We do not want more children to have their lives ruined because authorities are not allowed to talk to each other.

Madam Speaker! There is also another aspect of this that needs to be highlighted, and it concerns the civil servants and police officers who are in the middle of this system. They know that strong reasons are required to break confidentiality. But what happens when situations develop at a frantic pace? How are they to be able to judge if it is serious enough to act? The fear of making a mistake and perhaps even risking legal consequences can lead to people refraining from sharing information even though it might be able to prevent something tragic from happening.

Serious crime has escalated and is today one of our greatest societal challenges. We have shootings and explosions, and organized crime has spread from large cities to smaller towns and created insecurity throughout the country. Young people in vulnerable areas risk being drawn into crime, and women are particularly vulnerable to a growing insecurity in the public space.

Economic crime constitutes another side of the problem. Fraud with grants, tax crimes, and money laundering erode our common resources and make it difficult for serious companies to operate. Since these crimes often have links to organized crime, it is crucial that authorities have tools to effectively combat the structures. This is not what we saw in our country 20 years ago.

To handle the issues I have now mentioned, we need to change how authorities cooperate and share information. Sometimes the secrecy laws can become an obstacle, especially now when society needs more cooperation and information exchange than before.

Another example is that today it is easy to change municipalities to avoid coercive measures or to prevent children from going to school, and it is difficult to get hold of families that constantly change municipalities. There is, therefore, a need for established routines regarding the sharing of information between the country's social services. It must not be possible to keep children away from school for several years. We recently read about a case where children in a family were kept away from both school and dental care as well as LVU. It is a failure when children suffer.

The regulatory framework must be simplified and made clearer so that secrecy is no longer used as an excuse for the cooperation not functioning. The goal is that crime fighting and social interventions should be able to take place effectively without privacy being unnecessarily threatened.

Madam Speaker! We need a solution that makes it possible to act faster and more coordinately without compromising legal certainty. Only then can we create a safer society for everyone.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Jessica Wetterling (V)

Madam Speaker! I would like to begin by moving for approval of reservation 4.

I had intended to structure my speech in a certain way, but after listening to two speeches, I feel that I perhaps need to provide the Left Party's view even on certain issues that I had not intended to take up in this specific matter.

The report is titled Public Access, Secrecy and Privacy, and the previous speaker raised the issue of privacy at the end. That is what is difficult in our everyday lives as politicians: The principle of public access is an indispensable part of our democracy. It constitutes a guarantee for our legal certainty, for a fair administration and for an effective democracy.

It enables the public to gain insight into, control, and scrutinize public activities and power. It is also expressed in various ways in our constitutional laws, for example, when it comes to freedom of expression and freedom of information for civil servants, as well as the public nature of public documents. That we as citizens and residents, as well as the media, have access to information from authorities and can request documents is also fundamental for trust in the authorities to be maintained. It is also an important part of the possibility to scrutinize authorities throughout the country.

At the same time, people's privacy must, of course, be protected. The first two speakers focused very much on crime and the problem with secrecy in some cases. I can agree that it is absolutely a problem if it is as it is portrayed, that is, that secrecy laws prevent us from accessing serious crime – that one hides behind that filter instead of taking real measures to deal with crime and catch especially children who live in vulnerability or are in a risk zone, which we heard in the previous speech.

However, I think it is necessary to distinguish between the different mandates that different authorities have. It is, for example, important that the social services can also work on building trust. We have, for example, seen an LVU campaign where the social services are cast into suspicion and where information is spread that all children are taken into care if one contacts the municipality and is worried. When such things circulate, it is clear that a suspicion is created, perhaps especially among people who do not have such good knowledge of what the social services are actually tasked to perform. It is clear that many may refrain from asking for help if they believe that these false rumors are true.

Above all, the police usually point out that many other parts of society are required to catch these children. Sometimes, unfortunately, it is already too late by the time the police become involved.

I will not dwell too much on myself, but I have experience of serious crime in recent times. I therefore know what I am talking about, even though it is sometimes claimed that Left Party members have no idea.

When it comes to this report, I had intended to focus on the privacy aspect, which I find interesting. It is, as said, always a balancing act between what should be public and personal privacy.

We have very recently received an investigation, where I had the opportunity to sit in a reference group, which focused on the increasing number of websites that share, among other things, judgments. The committee has also delved into this. It concerns databases that, in one and the same place, collect many of the different pieces of information about us that are public.

The databases are used in a double-edged way, I would say. They are used both to carry out frauds and as a way for some to feel a greater sense of security. One can check who it is that one is in contact with and if the person actually exists. It is obviously a problem in our society that it looks that way.

Madam Speaker! Many of us are very digital today. The internet has changed from what it was when I was in middle school - one learned what Altavista was and could write a sentence and possibly get an answer - to today being our source for the answer to almost everything. Now one hardly even needs to write a question, but one can almost get the answer without having asked the question.

It is also a way for us to keep in touch with our loved ones and to share what has happened recently. We have contacts all over the world, but every time we do something on the internet, we also leave a digital footprint. I can admit that I have often accepted cookies out of habit, but the one who starts to look there can sometimes see that it says that one is now sharing the information with 300 others. I have personally started trying to limit how my information is shared, but many just click okay and move on to what they actually want to do. It is also convenient not always to have to enter passwords and so on.

All these footprints and data about what we do are collected by various actors who keep track of what we do. It could be the owner of the website you visit, your internet provider, the police, or outside hackers who keep track of what you do online. When an ever-increasing part of our private data is collected, perhaps including things that one sometimes wants to keep to oneself but has chosen to disclose in different contexts, they also remain there. The downside of this is that masses of private information about us and how we use the internet and social media are stored with the providers, and we have given it up entirely voluntarily.

Now, perhaps the debate primarily revolves around who owns the various platforms and around their connections to different states, but we must also realize that much of the data that is saved on a daily basis can be sensitive. This is something we need to be aware of.

How many of us actually know that a visit to a website or a download of an app many times leads to our personal data being shared with 10-30 other actors or companies without us having any relationship whatsoever with them? The British data protection authority has stated that the data handling violates the existing data protection rules and that this permeates the entire industry.

Madam Speaker! I believe we all agree that this area is characterized by problems that politics will need to monitor and manage moving forward. Even AI is an issue that is constantly relevant nowadays. There are many clear signs that the extensive data collection is having negative consequences. This has become an increasingly important issue for many. People feel a concern about how their personal data is handled and take various measures to protect themselves or refrain entirely from using certain services that are perceived as insecure.

Still, the consequences of both the data collection carried out so far and – above all – the ongoing and upcoming data collection are difficult to control and oversee. In recent years, this area has been highlighted through scandals and various leaks, for example when the purchase history for over a million pharmacy customers in Sweden was shared with others. Security gaps and other weaknesses are discovered daily, and those who want to access the data are becoming more numerous.

A personal data incident such as the one that affected these Swedish pharmacy customers can mean that data is leaked, which can entail risks to individuals' freedoms and rights, have serious consequences for individuals, and affect trust in the entity that has processed the personal data. Vänsterpartiet considers, therefore, that the Integrity Protection Authority's mandate to prevent personal data incidents should be strengthened. For that reason, we also consider that the government should act to strengthen individuals' privacy when it comes to digital marketing and that an investigation should be appointed to review the scope.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Gudrun Brunegård (KD)

Madam Speaker! Today we are dealing with a motion report on issues concerning publicity, secrecy, and privacy. These are issues where there is constitutional protection.

The fundamental principle in Sweden is that everyone has the right to express their thoughts and opinions in writing and in radio, television, and other media, as well as the right to access public documents. That right is, however, limited for the sake of certain interests, such as the protection of an individual's economic or personal circumstances.

The Instrument of Government states that the public shall work to ensure that the ideas of democracy are guiding in all areas of society and protect the individual's private life and family life. It is through this that there is protection against intrusion into personal privacy if it occurs without consent and involves surveillance or mapping of the individual's personal circumstances. This is the reason for the great caution when it comes to approving too many surveillance cameras around in society and for the fact that it is not permitted to link the registrations from traffic cameras to map whether someone is driving too fast between the speed cameras.

The limitations may never go further than is necessary with regard to the purpose of the limitations, and they may not threaten the free formation of opinion. Limitations may also not be made solely on the grounds of political, religious, cultural or other views. Through the prohibition of opinion registration, privacy has a constitutional protection.

The European Convention describes the protection of human rights, fundamental freedoms, and each person's right to respect for their family life and private life, their home, and their correspondence. The EU Charter also regulates the protection of personal data.

Just as there are extensive confidentiality provisions, there are confidentiality-breaking provisions that apply between certain specific authorities in certain specific cases. For example, healthcare can provide information about an individual's health status if it is necessary for the person in question to receive necessary care and treatment if the person is a minor or a substance abuser or is receiving psychiatric compulsory care.

The social services can also, under certain conditions, break confidentiality and provide information to the police in order to prevent terrorist crimes or money laundering and financing of terrorism. Confidentiality can also be broken generally if the individual gives their consent. Healthcare has extensive confidentiality but can still provide information to the police to prevent or interrupt certain crimes and in cases of suspected crimes against persons under 18 years of age.

Madam Speaker! On July 1 of last year, the Act on the obligation to provide information to counter incorrect payments from welfare systems as well as fraud, regulatory violations, and crime in working life entered into force. This is highly reasonable given that criminals are estimated to cheat their way into up to 75 billion kronor from welfare systems. In short, the Act means that state authorities will more easily be able to share information needed to counter incorrect payments from welfare systems.

The payment authority that was created at the turn of last year shall contribute to detecting incorrect payments in a more efficient manner and preventing crime. Several investigations concerning information exchange and reporting obligations between authorities are ongoing or being prepared. The purpose is that tax money shall not be used to finance criminal activities or to acquire money one is not entitled to, for example, payments from CSN.

Madam Speaker! It is deeply offensive that various search services collect and publish or sell information about private individuals' circumstances that can be exploited for criminal purposes. This can, for example, be information that identifies single and wealthy elderly people, who are then subjected to attempted fraud or burglaries.

Another way could be to take the opportunity to loot the home while the owner is on vacation, after the offender has combined a search of the vehicle register from cars in the long-term parking lots at the airports with other search services that reveal where the owner lives.

The principle of public access was not intended to disclose personal data about individuals in that way, but rather it aims to scrutinize power. Therefore, the government has investigated the constitutional protection for search services that publish personal data regarding address, telephone numbers, marital status, and other information about individuals' personal circumstances.

In the report presented in November last year, it is proposed that the exception in the media laws for search services that disclose sensitive personal data should be expanded to cover all personal data. The report is currently out for consultation and is being prepared within the Government Offices.

Since it concerns a constitutional amendment, identical decisions must be passed twice with an election in between. Therefore, this constitutional amendment is intended to enter into force on 1 January 2027. It will be an important step in the right direction to protect individuals from organized crime and to combine the protection of privacy with crime fighting.

With this, I move for approval of the committee's proposal in the report and rejection of the motions.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Malin Björk (C)

Madam Speaker! Initially, I would like to move for approval of reservation 2.

The principle of public access is one of the cornerstones of our democratic system of government. It means that individuals, opinion leaders, and investigative journalists can not only request but also have the right to receive public documents. That right ensures that citizens can gain insight into the exercise of public power and can monitor how power is exercised.

This principle of public access is something we Swedes often highlight with pride, and rightly so. It lays the foundation for free opinion-forming and for free debate on many different social issues. But public access does not, of course, always apply. It can be restricted if there is a need to protect certain pieces of information and that interest carries more weight. In those cases, the public's right to insight must give way, and sensitive information is covered by secrecy so that the individuals concerned could be harmed if the information were disclosed.

But if the legislation on public access and secrecy is not entirely relevant or hits the mark incorrectly, so that information that is worthy of protection is actually not protected, or so that information that the individual takes for granted that our authorities can share with each other is actually not shared, then there are reasons to make changes. Centerpartiet considers that it needs to happen.

Madam Speaker! We live in a time that appears uncertain in several ways. There are threats from foreign powers but also within the country. Several have touched upon this. Serious organized crime has taken large steps forward in recent years. Today, it threatens the safety of many in our cities and residential areas.

A type of crime that has increased exponentially over the last decade, while shootings and explosions have skyrocketed, is fraud. It is not strange at all, because it is significantly more profitable and clearly less risky to engage in fraud than to peddle drugs, and for those who are caught, the sentences are often low.

I could speak for a while just about fraud. I had, as a prosecutor, which I worked as until a few years ago, an interest in that type of crime already in 2015. But there were very few initiatives to investigate and to combat that type of crime.

It feels like, overall, we have been very slow to understand what an enormous source of revenue it has been and in what ways we have enabled our criminals to commit fraud.

In the so-called vishing frauds, where the fraudster, through suggested manipulation, gets their victims to log in to the bank, a victim can lose all their savings in zero time.

Here, the banks' transition to completely digital solutions for their customers, in combination with our principle of public access and the search services that unfortunately exist, has provided a large money tap for serious crime.

With the help of today's search services, it is all clear for the criminal to look up suitable victims, find the full personal identity number for the chosen victim, make a call and hijack the victim's bankID and the entire account.

In this way, our personal data has become one of the most important tools for committing lucrative crimes and thereby fueling organized crime. I mean that our personal privacy has been violated for too long.

Madam Speaker! Sweden is actually unique in the world when we allow information on age, residence, income, vehicle ownership, corporate involvement and more to be available to everyone. In recent years, this information has been collected and systematized in private databases, without the individual having anything to say about it.

In that way, we have created a gold mine for large-scale fraud against the elderly and extortion-like schemes against entrepreneurs. In that way, criminals can also map out rivals and their family members, as well as witnesses and actors within the justice system, as I myself have become aware, and then send a 13-year-old to a selected address to blow up a gate.

We must remember that we are unique in Sweden in this area. It is high time that we do something about it. I am very pleased that we received a report in November, which several have been involved in here, to change the conditions for this. It is definitely high time to do so.

There is such a contrast when one looks at our authorities and their possibilities to share relevant information. They are very limited. Authorities that cooperate to fight crime have for more than a decade flagged that they cannot hand over information to each other in an effective way. We have seen how very advanced criminal schemes use this very strategically.

This is where the secrecy legislation puts a stop. As I said initially, normally a far-reaching transparency applies for every citizen and a right to access information from different authorities. But for the authorities, almost the opposite has applied.

In many cases, it is entirely reasonable and justified with confidentiality between authorities - that I still want to emphasize. This naturally concerns certain authorities. But when it comes to crime fighting, one is surprised. It becomes almost incomprehensible.

When I hear the CEO of the search service hitta.se argue that their service helps the police obtain information that the police otherwise cannot get from another authority, it is something that is counterintuitive, and it must change. That is why we in Centerpartiet want to see a general secrecy-breaking rule between authorities in order to be able to share information for the purpose of cooperation and crime prevention.

We absolutely want the confidentiality to be strengthened for the personal data used to map crime victims and to commit crimes. We therefore also look forward to the proposal that the government will present in due course to protect personal privacy and which is based on the report from November.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Jan Riise (MP)

Madam Speaker! The report Public Access, Secrecy and Privacy covers, as you have heard from my committee colleagues, a great deal of both important and interesting aspects. I stand behind very much of what has been said here. This applies in particular to what Member Björk has just presented.

Even though the KU's reports rarely or never achieve tabloid status, there are very many pressing points to highlight here that will surely recur on several occasions. Let me just give a few examples. If they have already been addressed in the remarks before my own, it will have to be a small piece of feedback.

In several motions, people speak of the need to develop the secrecy legislation in such a way that cooperation between authorities and municipalities could be facilitated. In very many cases, the reasons for the proposals are primarily about curbing the constantly increasing crime for both preventive and combating purposes.

The word crime occurs very many times, certainly with good intentions. I want, of course, just like everyone else, to do what can be done to prevent crime, and if they are still committed, we want to facilitate the investigation work.

There is, however, another aspect that I would like to highlight. It concerns the preventive work, the health-related and social, which often involves children and young people who risk ending up on the wrong path. It is children and young people who need society's support to get on the right track, to get an opportunity to attend school with grades and be able to opt out of a criminal or other form of destructive future.

There are good examples in various parts of the country, also in my home county of Halland, of such cooperation between, among others, the police, school, social services, and youth activities. For some, trust and dialogue are crucial pieces of the puzzle; others may need more. But overall, the possible gains, both in money and quality of life, are great for those concerned.

I am not saying this to polemicize against other purposes, such as crime fighting and crime prevention, but I mean that there are good reasons to further develop good examples and experiences. This perhaps also applies to the contexts of long-term commitments that involve a somewhat different view on the budgeting of social activities.

Madam Speaker! That leads me unintentionally to the expression regarding how the best becomes the enemy of the good. If personal privacy is the good and accessible information technology is the best we have at least for the time being, you surely understand where my reasoning is headed.

Various preparations are currently underway in the Government Offices, for example regarding the wisdom of allowing private companies to sell judgments concerning individuals to anyone who asks. I understand that we in the committee choose to await the outcome, but that does not prevent any comments here.

I believe that we need to be very vigilant regarding the development we see ahead of us when it comes to our personal privacy. And, as many here have pointed out, we are already there. It is about companies and others being able to have access to, and furthermore sell, incomprehensibly large amounts of data about us as private individuals to companies that want to sell all sorts of things to us specifically.

Every time we accept cookies on a website, we give away a piece of our information, which can be used for advertising or other forms of communication. Add to that AI, artificial intelligence, with almost unimaginable possibilities of putting together the pieces of our lives.

I think that we will see more motions and posts regarding these issues in the coming years. We therefore need to keep the discussion alive at all times so that the best does not become the good's enemy.

During the process, we can take a position on the possibilities of selling information about what people may have been convicted of. It appears to me to be very unfortunate that a potential judgment for, for example, minor narcotics possession 20 years ago can affect a person's opportunities to get a job today. It is a waste of both human and administrative resources.

We can get better at clicking away cookies on websites. We can say no to partisan advertisements or other messages without a sender. We can say no to most things and focus instead on embracing meaningful ideas, such as helping children and young people through early and coordinated interventions. We can welcome initiatives that strengthen our personal privacy. We can choose to propose expanded areas for the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection, which is also present as a proposal here and has been discussed previously.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Malin Danielsson (L)

Madam Speaker! An open and free society requires transparency and protection for personal privacy just as much as tools to maintain law and order.

It is therefore of the utmost importance that the discussion on secrecy, privacy, and publicity is constantly ongoing and that every change is weighed and balanced from both perspectives. These are issues that affect us daily in our everyday lives and which can affect our trust in society if we do not succeed in finding the right balance.

Organized crime does not only challenge our view on confidentiality and cooperation between police, school, and social services. It also challenges the view on confidentiality in welfare systems and other public support systems as these are exploited by organized crime.

The demands on the authorities' access to information and the possibility to exchange information about individuals and companies in order to reduce incorrect payments are increasing. Several investigations are underway in the area, and the Payment Authority has recently been established as a step towards reducing incorrect payments. We in the Committee on the Constitution will likely have reason to return to these issues as concrete legislative proposals emerge in the future.

Madam Speaker! The question of individual privacy needs to be constantly monitored when new tools are introduced. A forward-looking Committee on the Constitution already alerted the Riksdag ten years ago to the potential problems that could arise when a voluntary constitutional protection for databases was introduced.

Today we see the consequences of this. With a few simple button presses, anyone can find out amounts of information about their neighbors, about their children's teachers, or about any of us here in the chamber. One gets information on where a person lives and what the residence is valued at, what cars the person owns, and whether he or she has committed any crimes. One finds out how old the person is and so on, and so on.

It is not only curious neighbors who use the information; it is also criminal gangs who trick money out of the elderly or persons with disabilities. At the same time, commercial companies earn money by providing this information, which they can easily request from our authorities. There are horrible examples where some services even offer a small ping in the email when it is registered that someone elderly has become single. This often means that the spouse has passed away.

Recently, an investigation was presented whose mandate was to see how we can tackle the problems created when our personal data is available online, as it is today. It is furthermore beyond our control to be able to remove them ourselves. I look forward to the continued handling of this matter.

With this, I vote in favor of the committee's proposal in the report.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Per-Arne Håkansson (S)

Madam Speaker! The principle of public access is an important prerequisite and an important factor for our open and free society.

It is something that we have also asserted in an EU context over the years. Already at the time of Sweden's EU accession, we highlighted the importance of preserving and safeguarding the principle of public access.

Today we are debating the Committee on the Constitution's report 7 on publicity, secrecy, and privacy. I would first like to move for the approval of reservation 1, which we from the Social Democrats have submitted.

Changes are currently underway regarding public access and secrecy, particularly linked to crime fighting. Some have resulted in concrete government bills, while important parts are still being investigated. In our reservation, we emphasize the importance of information exchange between authorities and municipalities. We expect the government to return with concrete proposals during the next year, in addition to the bill that was presented at the end of November last year.

In our reservation, we highlight approval of the submitted motions. This concerns motion 1710 by Eva Lindh et al. and 2685 by Ida Karkiainen et al., requesting 9. We also request partial approval of some motions that are listed in our reservation.

We mean from the Social Democrats' side that the broad parliamentary majority that wants to see the changes to the principle of public access that have now been highlighted is a strength in itself. The development of crime and society's ability to combat it places demands on us as legislators to provide authorities and municipalities with relevant tools. It is also a prerequisite for the officials, police officers, teachers, and social secretaries who for the most part constitute the first line in this work to be able to perform it as effectively as possible.

Madam Speaker! Some confidentiality barriers need to be removed to the greatest extent possible to enable this. At the same time, it is of great importance that the perspective of personal integrity and security is included in the work. The individual's rights against the state are of great importance. The citizen's perspective is just as important to include as the overall societal perspective.

There are some necessary changes that will now be implemented, but some can also be difficult to oversee. Therefore, we believe that a review of these types of issues is needed moving forward. With a holistic approach, we can gain increased knowledge and increased opportunities to act on the issue.

Madam Speaker! I want to emphasize that increased information exchange between different social actors is not solely about crime fighting in the sense that the police should succeed in finding someone to prosecute in an ongoing criminal investigation. It is equally about preventive work where authorities can exchange information to perhaps be able to help youths on a downward spiral in time or protect workers from being exploited in the labor market - or for that matter, that the police can inform a municipality about gang criminals who start HVB homes. If anything, it can be a hygiene factor in a society that strongly wants to counteract increased recruitment to criminal gangs.

Publicity, secrecy and privacy

The deliberation was hereby concluded.

(Decisions were made under § 12.)

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