Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free • Hacker News Board

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#341

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

badestrand wrote: post #331

llampx wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never thought I'd read the "What have you got to hide?" argument on HN of all places. First of all, you're being disingenious by putting up a strawman argument about "how much milk and eggs you buy." It is never about only milk and eggs. Advertising is only a part of it. Once you have an ID required to shop there, you can easily track who was there. You can follow their movements around the shop with cameras once you…

> You can use this for your own gains, let's say you are a bank employee or police officer who wants to keep tabs on your spouse. I think it's obvious that the data would not be public domain but stored strongly secured somewhere with very limited access. There are already very strict data privacy laws in Europe and the trend is clearly towards even more strictness. I, too, don't see any issue as long the as the laws…

[deleted]

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#342

Post by SahAssar » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

tpmx wrote: post #327

SahAssar wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't all of those scandals tied to foreign branches of the banks and the strictness has mostly only been applied there? I might be wrong, but I haven't heard of swedish residents being denied banking.

- 6-9 months ago I started reading online of mostly Swedbank customers who had suddenly been asked to move their monthly salaries to this bank, or they'd lose their accounts. These people were doing stock trading only via Swedbank. - 18 months ago I tried to facilitate creating a corporate bank account managed by a foreign CEO from a non-EU and very first-world country in order to be able to create a Swedish company…

Yeah, that first example does sound unexpected based on my experience. I might have to deal with something like the second example in the soon-ish future, mind telling me the route you took?

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#343

Post by colechristensen » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

adamcstephens wrote: post #69

colechristensen wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole history of human civilization is one kind of labor replacing another, with no shortage of people wondering about how the new being a destructive force doesn’t make it a social evil. The people who would have worked at this kind of shop will find other jobs created or otherwise enabled by the lowered costs of automation.

The whole of the industrial and now computer revolution has been the degradation of human existence in the name of profit and progress. Elimination of employment that is a requirement for sustenance and a non-miserable life is common. Automation doesn’t create jobs, it shifts them, generally towards less well paid options. Sure there are a few engineers who make more money, but what about the non skilled laborers?

Today’s unskilled laborers live in ways that would make preindustrial kings envious.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#344

Post by akudha » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 5:44 PM UTC

matz1 wrote: post #332

akudha wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me turn around and ask you - if you think this is not a problem, why don't you publish all your purchase info online? Along with where you bought them, what time, how etc? While you are at it, also publish your travel info - including mode of travel, time of travel, source, destination... I might be the boring-est person on the planet - lets say nothing about me is of any value to anyone. It is still nobody's bus…

>why don't you publish all your purchase info online? Along with where you bought them, what time, how etc? While you are at it, also publish your travel info - including mode of travel, time of travel, source, destination... Yes I prefer that for everyone (not just me), including people in government, so that I don't have to worry about hiding the information. Hiding the information has its associated cost. Transpar…

I prefer that for everyone

I don't understand why you should decide for others? If you want to put all of your info online, that is your choice. If I don't want to put my info online, that is my choice.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#345

Post by jariel » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 5:45 PM UTC

tpmx wrote: post #202

The BankID service seems to trip up many people here. Swedish residents have a personal identity number issued at birth or immigration. Format: YYYYMMDD-NNNN. More details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identity_number_(Swed... BankID is a service run by the Swedish banks that interfaces with the banks, individuals and third parties (like this chain of unmanned stores). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BankID T…

It would be a good idea to remove the 'date' from the number.

Edit: because having your birthday right there as part of common ID number is an obvious transgression of privacy that wasn't probably thought of back when the number was established. How anyone could disagree with this is beyond me.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#346

Post by tpmx » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 5:45 PM UTC

blueblisters wrote: post #340

tpmx wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure it's a matter of civilization - it's more a matter of infrastructure: The other piece of the puzzle is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Enforcement_Authority Basically the government runs debt collection in Sweden. They have the ability to withdraw money from your bank account. All of this is enabled by every resident having a (public) personal identity number.

Government run debt collection? Is this widely used by companies? Are there any drawbacks/cases of misuse? Does the government keep a credit score too?

> Is this widely used by companies?

Yes. It's a bit cumbersome, so there are companies specializing in doing this for small debts (say > Are there any drawbacks/cases of misuse?

Hard to say. My impression is that having one trusted party to manage debt collection makes it easier to handle the edge cases in a more humane way, but I haven't really delved into this area.

> Does the government keep a credit score too?

No.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#347

Post by teawrecks » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 5:46 PM UTC

badestrand wrote: post #331

llampx wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never thought I'd read the "What have you got to hide?" argument on HN of all places. First of all, you're being disingenious by putting up a strawman argument about "how much milk and eggs you buy." It is never about only milk and eggs. Advertising is only a part of it. Once you have an ID required to shop there, you can easily track who was there. You can follow their movements around the shop with cameras once you…

> You can use this for your own gains, let's say you are a bank employee or police officer who wants to keep tabs on your spouse. I think it's obvious that the data would not be public domain but stored strongly secured somewhere with very limited access. There are already very strict data privacy laws in Europe and the trend is clearly towards even more strictness. I, too, don't see any issue as long the as the laws…

"Let's just amass a huge amount of power in a place that only I can get to it, and I'll just promise that I'll never misuse it and that no one will every break in to take it."

That plan has literally never worked throughout history.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#348

Post by hannob » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 5:47 PM UTC

tpmx wrote: post #202

The BankID service seems to trip up many people here. Swedish residents have a personal identity number issued at birth or immigration. Format: YYYYMMDD-NNNN. More details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identity_number_(Swed... BankID is a service run by the Swedish banks that interfaces with the banks, individuals and third parties (like this chain of unmanned stores). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BankID T…

Practical question: Does this mean as a foreigner you cannot use these shops?

I know from trips to sweden that a lot of people use a custom payment system called swish that only exists in sweden, but I never had trouble paying with a visa card (with cash is sometimes a problem in sweden).

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#349

Post by tpmx » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 5:48 PM UTC

SahAssar wrote: post #342

tpmx wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- 6-9 months ago I started reading online of mostly Swedbank customers who had suddenly been asked to move their monthly salaries to this bank, or they'd lose their accounts. These people were doing stock trading only via Swedbank. - 18 months ago I tried to facilitate creating a corporate bank account managed by a foreign CEO from a non-EU and very first-world country in order to be able to create a Swedish company…

Yeah, that first example does sound unexpected based on my experience. I might have to deal with something like the second example in the soon-ish future, mind telling me the route you took?

You kinda need to have an EU-based CEO. Swedish-based is (marginally) easier.

There might be tricks via Cyprus or so, but that will only let you create the AB - you still need a Swedish corporate bank account to pay your employees the proper way.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#350

Post by zdragnar » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 5:48 PM UTC

badestrand wrote: post #331

llampx wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never thought I'd read the "What have you got to hide?" argument on HN of all places. First of all, you're being disingenious by putting up a strawman argument about "how much milk and eggs you buy." It is never about only milk and eggs. Advertising is only a part of it. Once you have an ID required to shop there, you can easily track who was there. You can follow their movements around the shop with cameras once you…

> You can use this for your own gains, let's say you are a bank employee or police officer who wants to keep tabs on your spouse. I think it's obvious that the data would not be public domain but stored strongly secured somewhere with very limited access. There are already very strict data privacy laws in Europe and the trend is clearly towards even more strictness. I, too, don't see any issue as long the as the laws…

> I think it's obvious that the data would not be public domain but stored strongly secured somewhere with very limited access.

That may be an obvious intent, but I do not believe it is obvious the implementation will succeed in achieving those goals. From past experience, it rarely has.