Source code of Swedish e-government services has been leaked

Post by daneel_w » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 8:41 PM UTC

whynotmaybe wrote: post #82

picafrost wrote: post #72

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I think this is good to highlight for non-Scandinavians. Scandinavian countries are extremely open and transparent in a way that might be shocking for Americans. For example, in Norway, I can check nearly anyone's brokerage account holdings, addresses, phone numbers, etc. on public websites. I can in theory look up anyone's tax filings. Personal identification numbers do not tend to be considered private in the same…

I heard a rumor that some people use this to check their neighbour's revenue and sometimes make snark comments if one of them has a high revenue but lives in a "average revenue" part of town. They'd say that if you earn a lot, you shouldn't take a cheap housing. Any truth to that?

Post by daneel_w » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 8:48 PM UTC

ROllerozxa wrote: post #111

ivell wrote: post #106

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How do they have handle identity thefts, spams, etc.? There are so many ways to misuse these data. Are the residents not concerned about this?

> How do they handle identity thefts By just accepting it as a normal fact of life that you will have some random stuff ordered in your name sooner or later with an invoice you'll have to dispute. Happened to a relative of mine, police do not care unless they order things above a certain value, without a police report you cannot get free ID protection, and then you'll have to sit for a long time in phone queues tryin…

Post by eitland » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 9:14 PM UTC

miki123211 wrote: post #135

PeterisP wrote: post #112

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The root cause of identity theft in USA and some other places is the lack of "proper" national identity and the associated use of various personal "secrets" (not that secret) for identity verification because there are no good easy other ways. Businesses in Scandinavia and many other countries would not treat someone knowing your personal information as any evidence of identity (because it's not); having all that inf…

The US has no single national photo + chip ID card that is available to everybody, for free, including illegal and semi-illegal immigrants and homeless people with no access to their birth certificate and such. It's completely crazy to me that you can be "out of status" with the USCIS and still get a social security card and a bank account, for example.

Post by matsemann » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 9:21 PM UTC

jmusall wrote: post #160

matsemann wrote: post #119

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When I worked for the government in Norway, it slowly changed to all code being developed in the open. 3k repos here now: https://github.com/orgs/navikt/repositories When I started it was a big security theater. Had to develop on thin clients with no external internet access, for instance. Then they got some great people in charge that modernized everything. Only drawback is when you quit, you have to make sure to un…

Very cool! Do they accept external contributions, e.g. from Norwegian citizens? Also, was there any thought given to "digital souvereignty" (wondering because the repos are hosted on a US service)? I'm also surprised that you were able to (or expected to?) use your private GitHub account for your work.

Post by lysace » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 9:24 PM UTC

torginus wrote: post #176

embedding-shape wrote: post #153

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> They'd say that if you earn a lot, you shouldn't take a cheap housing. I think a lot of "humbleness" is also enforced this way, in the US seems normal (or even some European countries) to flaunt your wealth, and others seem more or less OK with it, while in Sweden it's much more socially unacceptable to in any sort of way brag about being rich, or showing that off. Humble-richness is OK and tolerated, but flagrantl…

I have a friend who has moved to Sweden a while ago, and she told me a lot about the Swedish housing situation, and admittedly most if it went over my head, but in short, apparently very few places would even allow you to build even somewhat freely. Apparently she was in a situation where she 'owned' her house, but still paid a monthly maintenance fee to some agency. and she wasn't allowed to repaint the rooms or do…