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The only way of being anonymous in Sweden is illegal?

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Re: The only way of being anonymous in Sweden is illegal?

#121

Post by Cederfjard »

zulln wrote: post #79
dcminter wrote: post #3

Almost as interesting, you can (as I understand it) look up the current salary of anyone you want to. Though in doing so they will be notified that you have done so.

> Though in doing so they will be notified that you have done so. No. Depends on how you look it up, but you could just send an email (from anonymous account if wanted) to the tax agency asking for someones salary. You get an answer back in a few days without them being notified.

Not their salary per se, to be clear. They will tell you how much income someone paid tax on in the previous tax year.

Re: The only way of being anonymous in Sweden is illegal?

#123

Post by cinntaile »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #108

One upside of everyone's name, date of birth, address and personal ID number being public knowledge in Sweden is that organisations don't treat knowing any of those as proof of your identity. It's absurd how that's not the case in other places.

They most certainly treat knowing your personal ID as proof of your identity in plenty of cases. One example... People can change other people's addresses without any real proof, you need to opt-in at the tax agency so that you need an eID to do this. The tax agency explicitly mentions this on their website. https://skatteverket.se/servicelankar/otherlanguages/inengli...

Re: The only way of being anonymous in Sweden is illegal?

#124

Post by adolph »

m_eiman wrote: post #38
diggan wrote: post #6

I don't think this is true. You can apply for "Skyddade personuppgifter" (Protected personal data) which means your details won't be publicly viewable. Here is the documentation from the police: https://polisen.se/utsatt-for-brott/hjalp-och-stod-fran-samh... and here is the details from the tax agency: https://www.skatteverket.se/foretagochorganisationer/myndigh... I know bunch of other people who have protected iden…

"I'm more worried about the national DNA database where literally every single citizen who been born in Sweden is in. Seems usage by police and others are increasing while the purpose was suppose to be only for research." It's a blood bio bank, not a DNA database - although the latter can be created from the former, of course. As far as I know it's only been used once by the police to identify a criminal, they used i…

So in other words, they did the thing they said they weren't going to do but circumlocute it just enough so people don't think the police will continue to use it.

Re: The only way of being anonymous in Sweden is illegal?

#125

Post by hiccuphippo »

ghusto wrote: post #63

Initial reaction: WTF?! The more I think about it though, the more I'm aligned with the idea — except the home address part, that's just mental and dangerous. So all your details like salary, social security number, etc. are public. What's the end result? For me, nothing. I _could_ care less, but not by much. I know people get all worked up about things like their social security number being exposed, "because fraud!…

> I know people get all worked up about things like their social security number being exposed, "because fraud!", but really? How? They'd go somewhere and try to open a bank account or something with your details? Without an government approved ID?

Yes, at least in my country knowing your ID/SSN does nothing. It is crazy that someone could open an account with the number alone.

Re: The only way of being anonymous in Sweden is illegal?

#126

Post by growup66 »

tokai wrote: post #94
PuppyTailWags wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me wonder why ordinary people are not swatted, police called on them, deliveries made in their name, etc. in Sweden when a country that doesn't have such public records like USA has this so regularly several people have died.

Swatting works in USA because of how the police handle it. In Sweden, and in most of the world, you would get a knock on the door and some questions from two policemen. US police going in blind no-knock raids with weapons hot on the basis of a single anonymous phone call is the issue, not public addresses.

No post body was provided.

Re: The only way of being anonymous in Sweden is illegal?

#127

Post by DAVer98 »

erikrothoff wrote: post #5

As a Swede I love this openness. It puts everyone on an a level playing field and makes it much less dramatic and reduces the value of the data.

Fine for you to say when your salary is probably north of 100K+. If Im on disability benefit? Do I want my land lord to know this? Or my friends? I guess I should just shout it as I walk down the street. Embaressment and being an easy target dont exist in your world being healthy i guess and you're lucky.

Re: The only way of being anonymous in Sweden is illegal?

#128

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

rockbruno wrote: post #16

One of the "pranks" we play on expats moving to Sweden is to look them up on hitta.se, take a screenshot and send it back to them saying "this you?". They always freak out and with reason, these sites contain an obscene amount of personal information about you. Some of them even give you people's salary history, which is slightly harder to obtain but also totally legal. The weirdest thing I thought is that most Swede…

I think Sweden is/was a very high trust society.

People knew their fellow Swedes, many times with family links going back generations.

There are a lot of things you can do in a high trust society, that do not work in a society without that level of trust - for example, generous welfare benefits where you trust your neighbors not to exploit the system.

Re: The only way of being anonymous in Sweden is illegal?

#129

Post by [deleted] »

null_object wrote: post #111
impossiblefork wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, and that was literally front page news and was an incredibly unusual event. Furthermore, Östermalm has always been a place full of somewhat disreputable people, even though it ended up a place where relatively rich people lived. Notice that the story you're talking about involves prostitutes and all sorts of deranged stuff. These people may have been associates of the upper class, but there is a reason we Swede…

> that was literally front page news and was an incredibly unusual event. My point wasn't about the specific case (obviously multiple horrific murders are not a common occurrence), I meant the general milieu of drug addiction, law-breaking, prostitution; the disgustingly dirty slum conditions that people lived in - all of which was accompanied by police corruption and brutality. Naturally none of this is popular to b…

[deleted]

Re: The only way of being anonymous in Sweden is illegal?

#130

Post by c7b »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #108

One upside of everyone's name, date of birth, address and personal ID number being public knowledge in Sweden is that organisations don't treat knowing any of those as proof of your identity. It's absurd how that's not the case in other places.

That's purely incidental, though. There is no hard choice betweeen "all your data has to be public" and "you can be totally screwed by identity theft if your private data is leaked".

The US system could be fixed much more efficiently by putting the burden of proof on the businesses who made the transaction instead of the individuals whose data got stolen (gave someone a loan who gave you a stolen SSN? better find out who you really gave it to).

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