Response to interpellation 2024/25:446 on the handling of protected personal data
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
M believes that the government prioritizes combating men's violence against women by strengthening rental law protection and restraining order legislation. M argues that the handling of protected personal data is serious and that the government is implementing a shift towards the victims' rehabilitation. M emphasizes that the authorities must account for how they ensure secure handling 1 2 and that they must report which measures are taken to prevent future leaks. M argues that it is customary to write regulatory letters and that the authorities have an obligation to report incidents 2. C believes that the authorities' leaks are irresponsible and life-threatening 3 and argues that the current mandate is too thin 4. C wants the government to continue investigating how the reporting of incidents actually works 5.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Mr. Speaker! Helena Vilhelmsson has asked me if I intend to take further measures within my area of responsibility to ensure safety for those individuals who live with protected personal data, what my plans are to reduce the widespread post-violence that hidden women with children are often exposed to, and if I have full confidence that the authorities are repairing the crisis of confidence that has arisen following the almost systematic mistakes committed regarding the disclosure of confidential personal data.
Combating violence against women is a priority issue for the government, and a long series of measures are being taken on a broad front to increase safety and freedom for women who have left violent relationships and for their children. Examples can include that we have strengthened the rental law protection for those subjected to violence, that we have strengthened the protection for children in matters of custody, housing, and visitation, and that we are working with tightened contact prohibition legislation. In addition, we have appointed an inquiry to review the regulatory framework for the division of property, as the division of property is in some cases used as a form of economic post-violence.
The handling of protected personal data is an important issue. I view the information that protected personal data should have been disclosed very seriously. Persons who receive protection from the state in the form of protected personal data must be able to trust that this protection is upheld by all parts of the public sector.
The government is now carrying out a major shift in criminal policy and is moving from a focus on the perpetrator to a focus on the redress of crime victims and the protection of crime victims. Part of this involves ensuring that persons with protected information can feel safe. The government has therefore, among other things, decided on several agency assignments to strengthen the work with a secure handling of protected personal data.
The Courts Administration, the Prosecution Authority, and the Police Authority have, in their regulatory letters for this year, 2025, been tasked to account for how the authorities have ensured a secure handling of protected personal data. The Government has also previously tasked the Gender Equality Authority and the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection to increase awareness regarding the handling of protected personal data.
As a result of previous assignments, the Swedish Tax Agency (Skatteverket) now leads a network of over ten agencies to create increased uniformity and security in the handling of protected personal data.
I have confidence that the authorities are actively working to detect and reduce vulnerabilities that could lead to protected personal data being cleared, and I will, of course, continue to follow this issue very closely.
Helena Vilhelmsson (C)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for the answer!
The reason I initiated this debate, which is extremely important, was that Sveriges Television in an investigation before Christmas revealed that the justice system's authorities to a large extent leak the identities of protected persons – mostly women – when handing over documents in decided cases. Such a blunder by the authorities is irresponsible, let me say that. It is reprehensible, and it is downright life-threatening for women exposed to violence.
I asked myself what the authorities are doing, and what the government's plan is, so that this does not happen again. How are these women to get their normal lives back?
That a prosecutor, police officer, or court discloses the names, identities, or addresses of women subjected to violence is something that simply must not happen. It is about women's lives and about children's mothers.
Officials do their jobs, and one can make a mistake. But for the vulnerable person, in this case, it can have enormous consequences. It can actually even lead to death and to children losing their mother. We can all make mistakes, of course that is how it is, but then there must be a system in our authorities that ensures that this is corrected. It could be an IT system that warns, that several people check before a decision is dispatched, or whatever. It should be possible. It must be possible.
That the Prosecution Authority in this context says that they cannot control the human factor – and nothing more than that – is downright offensive. The alarm should have been sounded a long time ago. I am astonished when the Swedish Courts Administration says that these mistakes should be kept as few as possible. Is the goal not that no mistakes should occur? Is it okay that some people are cleared and thereby risk women's lives? Is that really so?
To use such language, such momentum, is dangerous. It leads to one perhaps thinking that it is okay.
When the vulnerable woman has her name leaked by the police and has to move again, it is not just that she has to start a new life. She also has to get new clothes, a new apartment, new furniture, insurance, subscriptions and so on. Then the question arises whether she receives compensation for this, because it is something that the state has caused. The answer is no, she does not. She does not get a single krona. One has to seek support from the municipality, from social services, which is practically a mockery. Compensation should be issued automatically, without the woman having to apply. It should be regarded as damages.
Furthermore, the fact that authorities reveal protected identities is a multiple punishment of the woman. She must not only live with the fact that the one she loved abuses her – the justice system may not succeed in imprisoning or punishing the perpetrator – but she is also punished by the state exposing her to further danger.
It is not the first time it has been revealed that authorities disclose identities. It has been shown previously through work and mapping from, among others, Skatteverket. What has happened now is that Sveriges Television has identified 44 cases over the last four years where a vulnerable person's identity was disclosed by the police, a court, or a prosecutor. I ask again if the government thinks this is in order.
I should not compare violence with violence, but I cannot help it. Would the government have been satisfied with the measures now taken if it had been about 44 people who had left criminal gangs and who had protected identities via, for example, an exit program in order to instead contribute to breaking up the gangs?
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Mr. Speaker! I thank Helena Vilhelmsson for the opportunity today to discuss these very important issues!
It is of course clear that violence against women by men should be combated with the same force as organized crime and gang criminality. There is nowhere anything that supports a claim that the government would take this task lightly. This is neither in the comments nor in the practical political response to this issue and to the revelations that have been made about how various actors in society have disclosed protected personal data.
It is exactly the opposite. Since several of the examples that have been raised in reviews in the media recently have hit just the judiciary, I would like to say as Minister for Justice that it is particularly serious. The consequences for individuals affected by personal data being exposed in this way can be extremely intrusive, far-reaching, and dangerous.
Individuals must, in all contacts with the public sector, be able to rely on that protected personal data is indeed protected and that it is not disclosed to unauthorized persons. This applies in particular in contacts with the justice system.
It is also in that light that one should see the assignments, or instructions in regulatory letters, that the government has submitted to the relevant authorities to account for the work being done to ensure that protected personal data is not cleared. In light of such an account, they must also, naturally, report which additional measures must be taken to ensure that it also happens in that way.
As said, there have been audits conducted in this area. Among other things, the National Audit Office has pointed out a number of key issues and key reforms to address this problem. One such issue concerns precisely sharpening the legislation regarding restraining orders. This is therefore a task that we have now completed. We have submitted a referral to the Council on Legislation and have received it back. In the near future, we will return to the Riksdag with a government bill to sharpen the legislation surrounding restraining orders, not least to protect vulnerable women and their children from violent men.
Another recommendation that has been received concerns the mail forwarding. It is also the case that protected personal data have been disclosed through mail shipments. Regarding this, we have commissioned an investigation that examines how Skatteverket's mail forwarding can be regulated to better guarantee than today that this type of protected personal data is not disclosed. This assignment is to be reported this summer.
I have also been involved in the assignments that go directly to the relevant authorities. They shall each account for the work being carried out, and for the additional measures that are now to be taken, in light of the negative experiences that exist and which have had very serious consequences for individuals.
I share Helena Vilhelmsson's commitment to the issue. I think it is extremely good that the questions are being raised for critical scrutiny and debate. I also think it is important to say that a response to this is precisely powerful political measures. I have accounted for several of them here.
Helena Vilhelmsson (C)
Mr. Speaker! I do not doubt that the commitment is just as great among the government and the opposition parties as it is with the undersigned. The question concerns what the Minister mentioned at the end, namely political measures.
I take the liberty of raising the measure that the Minister mentions regarding information in the regulatory letters. It states there that the authority shall account for how it ensures secure handling of protected personal data – period. I do not quite know if that is a sufficiently powerful marking regarding the mistakes that were actually uncovered in SVT's review before Christmas.
The other assignments that the Minister refers to were given earlier, before the review became known. Despite assignments having been given to authorities much earlier, these mistakes have nevertheless surfaced. The Government then writes a single sentence in the regulatory letters – which, moreover, are to be reported after a year. If one wants to be harsh, one could say that an additional ten or eleven women might have their protected identities revealed during that year. Then I understand that the Minister has contacts with the authorities throughout the year, but as an assignment, I think that is very thin.
Another assignment that was mentioned, and which has also been given to an authority previously, concerns the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection (IMY). It was also a question that was raised in the review, with quite remarkable results. It turns out, in fact, that courts to a large extent do not report incidents to the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection when it concerns protected personal data.
The courts say that it is being investigated internally. Reference is also made to the courts' integrity, which is a bit silly in this context. Imy is not supposed to review what the courts have decided, but rather they are to review and compile the mistakes that have been made – precisely to investigate whether it involves systematic mistakes and what we can do about them in that case. Therefore, it is somewhat provocative that of the 241 reports that came into Imy, only 10 of them came from the judiciary.
I and the Committee on Justice summoned the heads of the authorities to the Committee on Justice so that they could tell us about this and what plans or measures they have in mind to achieve improvement. The Swedish Courts Administration says that the judges have no obligation to report to Imy, but that it is done on their own initiative. That is a bit strange. It was also said that the only way to address this is to make political decisions. A political decision was needed that all incidents shall be reported to Imy.
If that is not done, it will be like when the Courts Administration says that they make their own internal summaries which are public and anyone can access. It will be roughly like admitting: "We are making mistakes, and we have compiled them. The report is here, and if someone wants to see it – read it! But we are doing nothing more about it." A question to the Minister is therefore whether the government is prepared to actually make political decisions that such mistakes should be reported to Imy, so that systematic errors can be detected and rectified.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Mr. Speaker! If we begin with the instructions to the authorities, I can say that that is the customary way to write to authorities in regulatory letters. I do not think that the lack of sulfurous reasoning linked to those writings should be perceived as an expression of a lack of commitment.
It is very clear that all the authorities we are now talking about – the courts, the police, and the Prosecution Authority – shall account to the government for how they ensure that protected personal data do not fall into the wrong hands. This naturally also implicitly includes that the measures intended to achieve that goal are taken. It is also naturally clear in the contacts we have with the relevant authorities that the mandate set out in the regulatory letters shall be seen in light of both a number of revelations recently and a previously known problem area. This applies both to which data are cleared and the lack of reporting of various incidents.
When it comes to personal data incidents, it is already the case that as a general rule there is an obligation to provide such information to the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection within 72 hours when the incident has been discovered. This applies regardless of whether the incident occurred in a judicial activity or in any other activity that the courts carry out. It is clear that the information that provides the basis for the suspicion that that type of reporting has not occurred is part of what we are now asking the courts to follow up on.
The issue of independence should nevertheless not be brushed aside as a kind of political evasion. There is a fundamental question in this, which is also emphasized by the constitutional committee concerning the independence of the courts, which all eight parties in the Riksdag have stood behind, namely which authorities should be able to exercise supervision over our courts.
Regardless of whether that supervision is to be carried out by an external authority, such as the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection, whether it is to be carried out in another way or replaced by a system of internal control, so to speak, there is no doubt whatsoever that protected personal data must be protected. They must not fall into unauthorized hands, and there must be robust systems to prevent that. In the event that it happens anyway, there must be systems to detect, report, and remedy it in a systematic manner. In those parts, the government's message to the relevant authorities is very clear.
Helena Vilhelmsson (C)
Mr. Speaker! I naturally stand behind the agreements that have been made regarding the independence of the courts, but in this case, it is not a question of oversight or not. That was my point.
I mean that incidents must be reported to someone in order to be handled and so that it can be reviewed whether they are part of a systematic error handling – especially in a case like this. The Minister previously said that there is an obligation to report, which in that case is contrary to what the Courts Administration says and contrary to what is actually reported, since only a third of the district courts report this to Imy. I would therefore like to add that the government shall continue to work on this and investigate how the situation actually stands.
In summary, I can say that I asked three questions in my interpellation. Among other things, I asked what the plans and measures are to reduce the widespread post-violence that hidden women and children are often subjected to. I received answers regarding, among other things, improved rental apartments for those subjected to violence, which is good even if it does not solve all the problems. There was talk of changes regarding custody, housing, and visitation, which is very good and much anticipated. Then it is only a matter of it being implemented in our courts and district courts, and I hope that the government is ready to allocate funds for this – for training, information, and so on. Even this with property divisions is very good.
In other respects, I think one avoids acknowledging that even what the authority has done in this case is part of the aftermath of the violence. I still think that what has been done in connection with SVT's reporting, that is, writing a sentence in the regulatory letters, is a bit thin. But I look forward to further debate, discussion, and dialogue on this.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Mr. Speaker! I thank Helena Vilhelmsson once again for the opportunity to discuss these important issues today.
I have heard the interpellor say that it is a bit thin. I would have appreciated even more concrete proposals about what else should be added.
If more powerful wording in the regulatory letters is being requested, I can say that the combination of what can be said as a customary wording in the regulatory letter, in combination with the authority dialogue taking place in this area, has created a very great clarity regarding the government's insight into the seriousness of this issue. It concerns individual people who give the state a great trust to protect their personal data and yet see them exposed – and furthermore by several of the state's most central authorities, namely the police, prosecutors and courts.
The insight is therefore there, as is the clarity that this cannot continue. The relevant authorities must report on what work they are carrying out and what additional measures must be taken to ensure that this does not happen in the future.
I also want to object to the description that the government or I myself should avoid expressing a kind of recognition so that this could be part of a form of post-violence. That is not the case at all. Now, this is not a form of post-violence exercised by the perpetrator; it is usually in that context that we speak of post-violence. This could, for example, involve the stronger party, who is often a man, using the division of property as a kind of economic means of pressure against the weaker party, who is often a woman. This is, however, a consequence that occurs after the violence and which can become very intrusive and serious for the person affected.
That is why it is very positive that we have had the opportunity to discuss these issues today. I have very high expectations regarding what effects the measures the government takes will have. I am, of course, always open to input on what additional measures can be taken to address this serious problem.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.