What’s the Swedish panic, honestly!

It’s amazing that there is such a flurry in Sweden about the leaking on the personal data of most of its citizens’ by the traffic authority. The fact is in Sweden, the personal ID and personal data of those resident in Sweden is already public data. Take a look at an article I wrote in 2014. It describes why this is and how personal data of Swedish citizens is not only public but is even used by companies to make money. In short there is a conflict between the Swedish Data Protection Act (DPA) and the Freedom of Information Act, which means that personal data of the Swedish citizen is public today.

As a British (and Swedish citizen now) it drove me crazy that the Swedes did not take this issue seriously. GDPR is going to change this as Sweden will no longer be able to interpret the law in a way to make it Swedish-friendly. However, I was getting concerned that the Swedes would find a way around this, in their own way, the closer we are getting to the deadline of 25 May 2018.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/sweden-hack-details-transport-department-government-police-parliament-opposition-a7860651.html