Response to interpellation 2025/26:218 on security screenings
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerns security screenings and the need for increased legal certainty. M argues that security screenings are an important part of the protection against the increased threat situation 1. M wants to make the screening process clearer, more legally secure, and more predictable through firmer guidelines 1 2 3. M emphasizes that it should be possible for employees to appeal decisions that are to their disadvantage 1 4 3. S considers it reasonable that decisions are justified and that clearer criteria are needed to create predictability and equality 5. S expresses concern that trade union-engaged individuals may be subjected to security screenings 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)
Madam Speaker! Adrian Magnusson has asked me what measures I and the government are taking in light of the developments regarding security screenings in the labor market and whether we intend to proceed with the proposals for an appeals procedure that were submitted in the report Security Screenings – new rules that came in 2024.
For several years now, there has been a broadened and heightened threat against Sweden and against Swedish interests. In the serious security situation that prevails, a well-functioning security protection effort is completely central. Security screenings of persons who are to work with or participate in security-sensitive activities are a very important part of that protection. The design of the process for the security screenings is of great importance both for the one who is to carry out the security screening and for the one who becomes the subject of the screening.
In December last year, the government received the report Security Clearances – New Rules. The report proposes several changes aimed at making the screening process clearer and more legally secure. One of the commission's assignments was to assess whether a possibility should be introduced to appeal decisions on security clearances. The commission assesses that rules should be introduced so that employees can appeal screening decisions that are to the disadvantage of the employee. However, the commission does not submit complete proposals but assesses that the question requires further investigative measures. The report has been out for consultation, and the proposals are currently being prepared in the Government Offices.
Also accompanying the image is a new investigation, A new order for personnel security, which was commissioned in November. The investigator in that investigation shall, among other things, take a position on whether a so-called clearance system should be introduced in Sweden. Such a clearance system typically means that a person is screened and approved in a certain security class and that the screening is carried out centrally. The investigator shall also take a position on whether such a clearance decision should be appealable. If the investigator concludes that a clearance system should not be introduced, the investigator shall instead complete the assignment that formed the basis for the report and thus submit proposals on how an appeals process in today's system for security screening should be designed.
That the rules for personnel security are designed in a purposeful way is a very important part of all this. It is an important issue for the government, and the need for new measures in this area is, of course, being considered continuously within the Government Offices.
Adrian Magnusson (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you to the Minister for Justice for the answer to the interpellation!
I would just like to say initially that I am very pleased that we can today discuss the important issue of security screenings in the working life. Just as the Minister for Justice knows, as do many who are watching at home, this is something that is becoming increasingly common in the working life as the security situation in the world deteriorates.
Let me first state that it is important that security screenings can be carried out so that persons who are not to work with or in security-sensitive activities do not do so either. It is central to Swedish security, not least in the uncertain times we live in.
Madam Speaker! In line with the deteriorating security situation, security clearances have naturally become more frequent throughout the working life. In the conversations I have with trade unions, they are at times questioning the reasons for the decisions regarding the security clearances. It can be difficult to justify the decisions for understandable reasons, as there may be strong reasons to keep the motives secret.
But when there is also no possibility of having the decisions on security clearance reviewed, they can, on several occasions for individual employees, be perceived as very insecure in terms of legal certainty. There are several stories of how employees around the country have suddenly lost their security clearance and simply cannot continue working at their workplace. The feeling of powerlessness is, of course, total, because the decision is final and is not justified. The decision can, in turn, lead to losing one's job due to a lack of work. If one, for example, is employed at a large infrastructure project and loses one's security clearance, one can hardly continue to work in the project.
Something that has been highlighted, for example from a trade union perspective but also from other sources, and which was investigated by the inquiry that the Minister for Justice mentioned, is a proposal to establish some form of appeal or review procedure. The inquiry mentioned earlier submitted a proposal that such a procedure should be introduced but did not go further on exactly what it would look like.
Several referral bodies, for example the Equality Ombudsman and the Swedish Public Employment Service, have expressed themselves fundamentally positively toward such an appeal or review mechanism in the referral process. The Swedish Public Employment Service stated already in December 2024 that such a procedure should be investigated urgently. There is thus support for establishing such a procedure even outside of the organizations that more traditionally represent the employees and the employees' interests.
It is also worth noting that the chief legal counsel of Sveriges Ingenjörer, in an interview in the member magazine Ingenjören on January 13, 2025, stated that the lack of procedure prevailing in Sweden regarding these issues could constitute a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights and the requirement for a fair trial.
Madam Speaker! Given the era we live in, there is nothing to suggest that the security screenings will decrease in scope, nor the problems for the individual that the security screenings can in some cases entail. The Government has, as the Minister for Justice explained, chosen to appoint an inquiry to investigate a different procedure than the one that applies today and which lies outside of what the inquiry proposes. As I understand it, one shall first, in the second instance, continue to prepare what the inquiry proposed regarding an appeal or review procedure.
Several referral bodies were positive towards the basic proposal. Therefore, my question to the Minister for Justice is naturally: Why delve deep into another procedure instead? The question of appeal possibilities should well be able to remain even with the introduction of a clearance system. At least that is what I think.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Madam Speaker! I thank the member for raising these important issues in the chamber. They are truly important both for Sweden as a country – for safety, resilience, and security – and for our entire society. It concerns the employers who are affected, who have the types of services that are security-sensitive in different ways. It also concerns all the individual people, the employees, who are affected because they become subjects of the assessment. Decisions that determine whether one is to be accepted for a position or not, of course, have very great significance.
I have no other opinion than Adrian Magnusson's, that is to say that the investigation was received in a good way. This also applies to the new question regarding the more procedural and today's appeal ban, i.e., that there is no possibility for the individual to have a decision reviewed. It shall be replaced by another arrangement. It shall, in short, become possible for the individual to appeal. That is the continued direction for the government's work.
One must understand the new investigative approach in the sense that it aims at how the security clearance system should function. Simplified, it is about whether one will need to perform a security clearance every time a certain service becomes relevant, or if one can perform a centralized security clearance that can then apply more generally. That is what is called a clearance system.
We have not said that the issue of appeals is some kind of subsidiary or secondary issue. I want to state that regardless of whether one chooses to retain today's method of conducting security screenings or whether one moves to a clearance system, we shall receive proposals on how an appeals procedure, an appeals process, can be conducted.
This is the logical step that follows the first investigation. There is a need to ensure the possibility of appeal. The first investigation left no concrete proposal on how the system should be designed, but that is to come in step two. This applies regardless of whether we choose the clearance path or remain in today's order regarding security screenings, which, put simply, are done service by service.
Adrian Magnusson (S)
Madam Speaker! I am pleased that the Minister for Justice and I agree on the importance of these issues and the importance of the individual's rights, even when it comes to this type of decision. I am also pleased with the clarification that the issue of appeals shall not come in second place.
I may have interpreted the Minister for Justice's answer a bit too strictly. It was primarily the wording that if the investigator concludes that a clearance system should not be introduced, the investigator shall "instead" complete the assignment that formed the basis for the report and thus submit proposals on how an appeals process in today's system for security screening should be designed.
It was primarily the word "instead" that I hung up on. I thought that if it was concluded that a clearance system should not be introduced, one would instead look at this question. But I am glad to hear that the question of introducing an appeal or review institute continues to live.
Given what both I and the Minister for Justice have said about the deteriorating security situation in our global environment and in Sweden, I believe that this issue will continue to live on. The security screenings will certainly become even more numerous; more and more people will be affected. Similar questions will surely arise if a clearance system is introduced. People will wonder why they end up in a certain security classification and not another, and will also come up with other, similar questions.
The investigation we are discussing – that is, not the one appointed in November but the one that submitted its final report in December 2024 – provides a fairly in-depth reasoning. It has primarily examined what clearance systems look like in other parts of Europe, not least in our Nordic neighboring countries. There, they link it very much to the Nato issue. There are certainly good reasons to reason about whether it would be good for this type of security screening or for security work in general to instead have a clearance system, but that is another interpellation debate.
I look forward to the committee's final report. If I read the government's directive correctly, it will arrive first in June 2027. The question of how we should proceed with the system continues, of course, to be investigated. But the question of judicial review and appeal seems to be in some kind of limbo. That may have been harshly put, but I experience it, in any case, as the question being somewhat dormant until the committee delivers its final report in June 2027.
In the responses I have managed to read, the referral bodies are still quite clear that they are positive towards a review or appeal mechanism. The major criticism lies, perhaps, in that they consider the issue not to be fully prepared and that they therefore could not proceed. I really hope that the investigation looks at that question regardless of what is concluded regarding the clearance order.
I feel somewhat more secure after the discussion with the Minister for Justice today than I did when I entered the chamber a few minutes ago. I truly hope that we can move forward in this issue, because while we discuss and the investigation continues, there is a great risk that wage earners across the country continue to experience being without legal protection. This must, of course, constantly be weighed against the importance of ensuring that people at workplaces in Sweden with security-sensitive activities, and where security-sensitive information may be present, are security-cleared and do not pose threats to any of the nation's interests.
I sincerely hope that the investigation looks further into the issue, because the referral bodies were, as said, positive, according to what I was able to read.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Madam Speaker! I naturally rejoice that Adrian Magnusson said that he feels a bit safer than a moment ago, but I am not satisfied with that. I want him to feel completely safe.
I want to emphasize once again that the starting point and the main question for the current investigation concerns submitting proposals on what an appeal procedure should look like, regardless of whether one chooses to retain today's security screenings or whether one transitions to a clearance system. That is how the directives should be understood. A proposal for an appeal process shall therefore be submitted. It can be understood to be designed in different ways depending on whether one chooses to remain with today's order with security screenings or transition to the clearance system. We can feel secure – completely secure – that that question is in no way pending but on the contrary is the core of the assignment.
The second thing I want to say now while I have the chance, regarding the investigation that reviewed the security screenings, is that while the issue of appeal is central, it is also completely central to try to achieve as materially correct assessments as possible already in the first instance.
An important background to the commission being appointed was the realization that such tests now occur in many different fields in society, not only in the state but also in substantial parts of the business sector and elsewhere. This means that thousands of employers are making these types of assessments.
The experience is also that the assessments can be made in somewhat different ways. There simply are not sufficiently fixed guidelines for – simplified a bit – which categories one should work through when conducting a security clearance. I think that the employee's, i.e., the job applicant's, perspective is also important to emphasize. One main purpose is, after all, to achieve clearances that are more legally secure, predictable, and equal from the individual's point of view as well. That, in combination with an opportunity to appeal decisions, I believe can in a very tangible way improve the situation also for the individual.
Adrian Magnusson (S)
Madam Speaker! The Minister for Justice has in his previous legal actions made himself known for standing up for the individual's rights. It therefore pleases me that he continues to express himself positively in this matter as well.
I think the Minister for Justice touches on something important regarding materially correct and equivalent decisions. Something we have not touched upon particularly much today, but which is also important, is that, in cases where it is possible, it is reasonable that one should be able to expect the decision to be justified. There are certainly many cases where it cannot be justified for security reasons, but in the cases where it can, it would be perfectly excellent to have such an arrangement.
It would also have been very good to find an order where it becomes clearer what is being assessed so that one, as the Minister for Justice says, gets a predictability and equality in the assessments.
I experience that there is unfortunately a concern among some trade unions that people who sometimes make themselves uncomfortable in their workplace due to their union work are subjected to such security clearances. I have no statistics on how many this concerns and whether it occurs on an ongoing basis. The Minister for Justice himself says that clear criteria for equality and predictability are lacking, and as a result, such issues can arise if, for example, a person who is union-engaged at the workplace loses their security clearance. Such a situation could also arise regarding persons who are known to have been union-engaged at a previous workplace, so that they do not receive a security clearance when they apply for a new job.
I look forward to the questions continuing to be investigated. Based solely on this discussion, I judge that there is broad support in the chamber for changes, at least when it comes to appeals and the review mechanism.
It should be added that the clearance issue has been investigated historically. At that time, it was concluded that it was not the right way to go. It is possible that the investigation, due to the deteriorated security situation and other reasons, may come to something else this time. I do, however, look forward to the investigation presenting its proposals in June 2027, even though I think it is a long time until then.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Madam Speaker! I would like to once again thank Adrian Magnusson for the opportunity to discuss these important issues today.
They are important for a long series of different reasons. They are, of course, important for Sweden as a country and for our Swedish society, which finds itself in a vulnerable security situation with very potent threats against both our external and our internal security. They are important for those employers who have a strong public and societal interest but also a strong own and operational interest in knowing that the persons working in the operation live up to high-set requirements on security.
They are, of course, also important for the individuals affected by these screenings when they are seeking a job or are already employed within a certain company or a certain state activity. It also applies to those seeking another position within the same activity where one must undergo a security screening to be eligible for the job.
We have both proposals on how the examinations should become more legally secure, predictable and equitable when it comes to the objectivity of the decision and a fairly broad consensus around the idea that we must find a way for the individual to be able to appeal a decision. It is, of course, in the nature of the matter that one often cannot state reasons because it concerns just security-sensitive activities. The question is how one can arrange a system that can handle it in a way that also becomes legally secure for the individual who wants to have their case reviewed. If, in an individual case, people have been sorted out for non-objective reasons, for example that the person has a trade union mandate and has made themselves uncomfortable, it would in that case be caught.
Regarding the clearance issue, there are indeed both advantages and disadvantages with both arrangements. It feels natural to do so in light of our international context with the NATO membership. The investigation will determine which path we shall take – the current system or clearance. Under all circumstances, there will be an opportunity for the individual to appeal.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.