Confidentiality for data on hunters at the County Administrative Board and the Swedish Police Authority
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerned confidentiality for data on hunters held by the County Administrative Board and the Police Authority. S moved for approval of the proposal to protect hunters who sell wild boar meat and pursuit hunters from crime and harassment, and to prevent weapons from falling into the wrong hands 1. SD moved for approval and emphasized that confidentiality is necessary to prevent criminal gangs from exploiting personal data to locate weapons or harass hunters 2. M moved for approval and stated that the change is important to protect pursuit hunters against threats and vandalism from animal rights terrorists, as well as to facilitate the sale of wild boar meat.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Malin Larsson (S)
Madam Speaker! I would like to begin by moving to approve the committee's proposal in the Committee on the Constitution's report 6 on secrecy for information regarding hunters at the County Administrative Board and the Police Authority.
Madam Speaker! At the beginning of the 1980s, there were an estimated fewer than 100 free-roaming wild boar in Sweden. They had escaped from an enclosure. In 1987, the Swedish Parliament decided that the wild boar should again be regarded as a natural part of the Swedish fauna, and at the beginning of the 1990s, there were approximately 500 wild-living wild boar in Sweden.
Then the population increased rapidly. During the 2000s, there were plenty of wild boar in large parts of Götaland and Svealand. According to various assessors, there were between 50,000 and 80,000 wild boar individuals in Sweden in 2006, which continued to increase. In 2021, it was estimated that there were almost 300,000 wild-living wild boar in Sweden, and during the hunting year 2020/2021, a record number of wild boar were shot - a total of 161,000 animals.
Madam Speaker! The large population of wild boar caused significant damage in agriculture and accounted for many traffic accidents. At the same time, wild boar meat is a climate-smart and flavorful meat. This led the previous Social Democratic-led government to invest resources in a long-awaited wild boar package with several assignments to, among others, Jordbruksverket, Livsmedelsverket, Länsstyrelsen Kronoberg, and Statens veterinärmedicinska anstalt.
The wild boar package was part of the national food strategy's action plan. The aim was to give consumers greater access to a supply of wild boar as food. The investments were directed towards the entire potential market and included meal experiences at home and in restaurants, but also public meals. The wild boar package also included marketing and knowledge-raising measures with a focus on the processing and further development of a disease-free herd of domestic pigs, where protection against African swine fever was, of course, particularly emphasized.
Investigations of wild boar for trichinosis and radioactive cesium-137 following the nuclear accident in Chernobyl in 1986 are still subsidized. The grant provided funds to increase the incentives for wild boar hunting and to simultaneously achieve a more resource-efficient handling of subsidies for costs of analyses of wild boar meat.
A mandate was also given to revise the regional management plans with clear objectives for wild boar management. In order for wild boar management to function with game as a resource in the food strategy, the social democratically led government also gave the mandate to facilitate the sale of small quantities of wild boar meat directly from hunters to consumers.
That is where we stand today, Madam Speaker. Today, we Social Democrats say yes to the proposal which means that the information that a county administrative board needs to register regarding hunters' activities, when it concerns the transfer of small amounts of wild boar or meat from wild boar directly to end consumers under certain conditions, shall be covered by secrecy, and that secrecy shall in a corresponding manner apply to information relating to the Swedish Police Authority's registers of contractors within the National Wildlife Accident Council.
The National Wildlife Accident Council, NVR, is a forum for cooperation on wildlife accident issues. The cooperation includes the Swedish Police Authority, the Swedish Transport Administration, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, the Swedish Association of Hunters, and the Hunters' National Association. NVR's overall goal is to reduce the number of wildlife accidents so that people are not killed or injured, as well as to reduce the suffering of wildlife in connection with wildlife accidents.
Our search hunters and their dogs perform a great and often dangerous task for us other citizens, but also for the animals that are injured in connection with traffic accidents by shortening the suffering of injured wildlife. Therefore, we legislators shall also do what we can to protect our hunters - both search hunters and hunters who wish to sell wild boar meat.
These important proposals aim to prevent crime in society by preventing firearms according to the Weapons Act, ammunition, silencers, or magazines held by hunters from falling into the wrong hands as a result of the registration of hunters' personal data.
The whole issue is also about the fact that wild boar is a wildlife resource that should be managed in a way that reduces damage in traffic and in agriculture. Hunters should be able to safely sell meat from the wild boar they shoot, and more people should have the opportunity to eat this climate-smart and delicious meat.
We Social Democrats are glad that we are now completing this piece of the puzzle.
Mattias Eriksson Falk (SD)
Madam Speaker! Today we are debating the Committee on the Constitution's report 6 Secrecy for data on hunters at the County Administrative Board and the Police Authority. The proposal is that the legislative changes shall enter into force on April 15, 2024. I move for approval of the committee's proposal.
The Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act is something to be proud of. I am thinking that in many cases we can have an open society where information is available for citizens or mass media to review in order to ensure that the democratic control in our society is maintained and is actually reviewable. Just as the members of the Riksdag have the opportunity to review the government, the Riksdag or, for example, the municipal council also need to be able to be reviewed. It is, after all, in this way that we contribute to maintaining the citizens' trust in society's institutions.
The secrecy part of the law is necessary. There will be occasions when secrecy prevails and there are obstacles against the dissemination of personal data. This is, for example, about preventing sensitive information from benefiting criminals and being used for extortion or threats. Public access and secrecy are admittedly in direct opposition to each other, but both parts are needed in a democracy and a rule of law.
Just as the committee states in its report, the proposal implies the following: "Confidentiality shall apply at a county administrative board for information relating to registers of activities for food control, unless it is clear that the information can be disclosed without risk that firearms according to the Weapons Act, ammunition, silencers or weapon magazines will be used for criminal purposes. Furthermore, the proposals imply that confidentiality shall in a similar manner apply to information relating to the Swedish Police Authority's registers of contractors within the National Wildlife Accident Council."
It is a change that we Sweden Democrats stand behind. This is an issue that we have pushed for for many years, and it is therefore pleasing that this change for the benefit of the individual, in this case the hunter, entails greater safety.
Madam Speaker! As a hunter, you easily end up in a vulnerable position, especially if your personal data is available as a public record with authorities. It is no secret that organizations that strongly oppose hunting could utilize this data, but even criminal gangs and organized crime could utilize it to locate weapons, silencers, or magazines to steal and use for serious crime.
Unfortunately, we have ended up with a society where the changes proposed today are necessary to protect the individual from being subjected to crimes or harassment because one is a hunter or has access to weapons. It is also in the interest of society to strengthen the confidentiality for this information and in this way, to an ever greater extent, prevent it from being misused.
Madam Speaker! The Sweden Democrats is a hunting-friendly party. We want to facilitate hunting for hunters while simultaneously ensuring that they do not risk problems just because they are hunters. Being a hunter, whether one hunts in their spare time or works for an authority, is a lifestyle that hundreds of thousands of people in Sweden carry with them.
I have great respect for the knowledge, experience, and will that many hunters possess when it comes to handling weapons, hunting, and animals - knowledge that has been passed down from generation to generation, obviously with some change, as new knowledge and experience always come along the way.
When hunters help, for example, the public sector, the public sector must also help the hunters. For the sake of the future, we shall ensure that we make it better and easier in Sweden, and the proposal that we shall decide on today is a step on the way there.
In this speech, Lars Andersson, Matheus Enholm, Runar Filper, Victoria Tiblom and Martin Westmont (all SD) concurred.
Erik Ottoson (M)
Madam Speaker! Let me begin by expressing my approval of the Committee on the Constitution's proposal in the report.
It is not very often that we in the Committee on the Constitution get the opportunity to deal with matters concerning hunters, hunting, and game, but when we do, one becomes a bit extra engaged as both a hunter and a KU member. Perhaps that is why I am the only KU member participating in this debate and the rest come from the Committee on Environment and Agriculture, who knows.
The changes that we are implementing today are changes that I believe have been needed for a long time, especially the part concerning the National Wildlife Accident Council. As stated in the bill, these are changes that need to be made partly to protect weapons, magazines, and silencers from falling into the wrong hands, and partly because we have an increasing threat situation against those who, in the name of the state, perform a task that is very important for the ethical approach to wildlife.
There are countries where one does not think so much about what happens to wildlife injured in traffic, Madam Speaker. There is a crash, and then it becomes an insurance matter. What happens to the wildlife is another matter. In Sweden, however, we have chosen another path, a significantly more ethical path, where the goal is always to locate and shorten the suffering as much as possible. This is a very difficult task that requires great commitment from the individual hunter and which not every hunter and definitely not every hunting dog can manage.
Training work is a prerequisite for obtaining a good search dog that can manage to resolve a traffic search. This is a task that many times cannot be accomplished by just having a dog. Many times it is required that one has two dogs trained on different tasks to manage the search in its entirety, and one may need to take help from friends and colleagues to complete the entire task.
In that situation, when one performs this task on behalf of the public, one can be threatened by animal rights terrorists who think that we should not have such an ethical approach. There are hunters who have their cars smashed and vandalized when they perform this task, if it happens to be a wolf just that time and this becomes known. The information that can be obtained is used to find the person and threaten and intimidate them into silence. This is despicable and unacceptable in a democracy.
When we introduced the Freedom of the Press Act in Sweden a long time ago, the goal was to create conditions for transparency in the public administration, to be able to hold power accountable and see what is happening in the public administration. It was a time with significantly fewer personal data stored within the framework of the public administration.
The barriers to requesting personal data were significantly higher before the breakthrough of digitalization. The balance in the Swedish principle of public access has shifted in a way that perhaps was not quite foreseen, and in this era, we have an important task in trying to find a reasonable balance.
Secrecy for information on hunters at the County Administrative Board and the Police Authority
For a number of years, it has become increasingly clear that the threat, the hatred, the violence, and the vandalism against pursuit hunters within the framework of NVR, but also other forms of hunting, is growing and becoming an ever larger problem. Let me therefore, Madam Speaker, express my surprise that the proposal is only coming now, when this government has taken office and is able to deliver it to the floor of the Riksdag.
This is a fundamentally important issue for us to be able to look our NVR-hunters in the eye when we send them out on evenings or nights, often in the middle of the night, in the twilight or just at dawn at 4 o'clock, when they, with their own safety at stake, shall attempt to initiate a traffic search along an often heavily trafficked road together with one of their dearest friends – the hunting dog that many times is a life companion.
That we, given this risk as well, until today have said that we do not even intend to protect the hunters from those who threaten and hate them, has appeared to me as indecent and incomprehensible for a quite long time.
What has triggered this now is, ironically, something completely different, namely the possibility of selling smaller quantities of wild boar meat directly to consumers and that one must register to do this. This is of course also an important part, but what I think is the absolute heaviest argument and which is most important for me is that all those who, alongside their normal lives, are on call 24/7 to in an ethical way take care of traffic-injured wildlife and end the wildlife's suffering shall receive the honor and glory they deserve.
With this, I would like to once again urge approval of the Committee on the Constitution's proposal.
In this speech, Magnus Resare (M) agreed.
The deliberation was hereby concluded.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.