6 ms·

Interesting, in Sweden this kind of data is already public for anyone to view. There is also several sites that provide this information like a search service

Interesting, in Sweden this kind of data is already public for anyone to view. There is also several sites that provide this information like a search service and it's perfectly legal: http://www.merinfo.se/ http://www.merinfo.se/ http://www.ratsit.se/ http://www.ratsit.se/

marinabercea 11y ago
The data released contains national identification codes that are confidential. I believe the Swedish equivalent is the 'personnummer'. The sites you indicated appear to be regular person search engines, like the US equivalent Whitepages? Can you show a specific search result, pick any Swedish name you want, that would also list the person's personnummer?
- tednoob 11y ago
  The 'personnummer' is also publicly available, though the sites usually have to limit access in order to comply with Personuppgiftslagen/PuL (Swedish version of the Data Protection Directive).
- rhblake 11y ago
  The mentioned websites contain at least the full name, birthdate, registered address and marital status of every Swedish resident (at least above the age of ~16?), with the exception of a very small percentage of people with protected identity (which you can only get if you're under a "serious and concrete threat"). They get this data straight from the government - it's all public. Go to e.g. http://www.ratsit.se/ http://www.ratsit.se/, write "Stockholm" under "Var" and hit "Sök" and click on a name for an example. You won't see the personal identification number ("personnummer") that we use for absolutely everything, however as tednoob mentions you can get access to this by paying for premium access. Or you can call the Swedish Tax Authority. They don't have the right to ask who you are or why you want someone's number.
  - bemmu 11y ago
    In Finland even salary and capital gains data is released. Newspapers compile high score lists from it each year. There might be some lower limit to how much you need to earn before your data becomes public. Here's some select tidbits from the data in English: http://yle.fi/uutiset/who_are_finlands_top_earners/8427787 http://yle.fi/uutiset/who_are_finlands_top_earners/8427787
    - vesinisa 11y ago
      You can actually access the public tax information for anyone if you visit the tax office or call their free customer service. Newspapers publicise only the top earners, but nothing stops you from finding out how much your neighbour earned last year in income and capital gains, if you really want to (and I guess quite many want, Finland is after all known as the "land of million of enviers" in addition to the more famous "land of thousand lakes".)
    - staticelf 11y ago
      That is true for the Swedish sites/system as well.
  - callesgg 11y ago
    On http://www.upplysning.se/ http://www.upplysning.se/ you can get the full information. But you do have to register for a free account.
- jug 11y ago
  It will list the "personnummer", but usually not the last 4 digits. This became a big deal a number of years ago, when they did list the complete numbers, and this was changed so that if the complete number is requested, the party you request information about needs to be informed. However, the complete numbers are still public. Just with that caveat nowadays. (unsure if some still sidestep the "new" legislation, there were some more or less shady companies for a while that still informed you of their full numbers)
eng_monkey 11y ago
Amazing. I wonder what the benefit is of having information such as you home address public.
- marinabercea 11y ago
  I'd argue there is none, because friends and family already know how to reach you. However, both sites display ads.
  - mediascreen 11y ago
    I'm not saying there aren't drawbacks, but I can think of two benefits: 1. It makes some forms of investigative journalism easier. For example, there has been a lot of discussion about the potential problems of having most of the influential journalists in Sweden living within a very small "hipster" area in Stockholm. 2. E-commerce companies may decide to only ship to the adress where you are officially registered, making it harder to commit e-commerce fraud.
    - rhblake 11y ago
      On the other hand it's trivial to change someone's official address. Just send a certain form by mail to the tax agency. (Not sure if they send a confirmation to the old address; but if they do, the perpetrator only has to pick someone who's on vacation; hello Twitter & Facebook.)
      - petriw 11y ago
        If you have registered an email / phone number they will send a message there about your changed address. I don't know if they've done this yet but a while ago there were articles about them working on a way to disallow changing your address via the mail form: http://www.dn.se/ekonomi/sa-ska-id-kapningar-forhindras/ http://www.dn.se/ekonomi/sa-ska-id-kapningar-forhindras/
- staticelf 11y ago
  I would say there is more issues than gains. But sometimes it's nice, I once found someones wallet and was able to find his phone number with the service. Called the guy, he came and picked up his wallet and gave me 500kr as thanks.
dijit 11y ago
Difference being that in Sweden there is a different requiremnet for causing harm (IE; national ID card or passport - or linked bank account) simply having a social security number and address is not enough for identity theft to occur. in other countries they treat SSN's as private, thus they are trusted.
- staticelf 11y ago
  That's not really true. Often you can order stuff from the internet with only knowing the SSN. You can order on invoice with Klarna for example. Of course, for things that really matter, you need an ID.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - icebraining 11y ago
    But are you liable for those purchases? Can the seller accept some form of post-purchase payment mechanism and go after the SSN holder?
    - rhblake 11y ago
      You're not, but it's up to you to deal with the administrativia (reporting it to the police, disputing the invoice).
  - emj 11y ago
    You are not liable but you can't ignore it either, if you do nothing you are going to go to court in the end.
  - dagw 11y ago
    I thought Klarna would only allow invoicing if the delivery address matched the registered home address of the SSN owner.
    - staticelf 11y ago
more_original 11y ago
Interesting. In Germany this database does not even exist. Each town keeps its own data and they are not connected. I think the reason for this are the evil uses of data bases by the Gestapo during Nazi times.
- germanier 11y ago
  Most states keep all data in a state-wide database and all registers are electronically connected. This is the reason why you don't need to deregister anymore when moving within Germany, a new registration will suffice. What there isn't is a single central database and if you want to query data you will need to ask different authorities to get it all.
- SixSigma 11y ago
  > the evil uses of data bases by the Gestapo during Nazi times. IBM leased them the machines and sold them the punched cards. And then sold them the census data they had collected across Europe during the 1930s. http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/ http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/
- nxzero 11y ago
  It exist at the very least for intell reasons.
- contingencies 11y ago
  If you are German and have a passport then you are in a centralized database.
- kafkaesq 11y ago
  In Germany this database does not even exist. That seems highly doubtful. How do the EU countries know you're a citizen, then, when you cross the border?
  - SolarNet 11y ago
    If his claim is correct it seems they would call the town in question. Maybe the EU has a database that includes Germans though.
m00dy 11y ago
Well, I'm turkish and living in Sweden. I can see myself in the dumps as well as in those swedish search services.
fapjacks 11y ago
As an American with a Swedish wife, I was very surprised to learn about the availability of this data. But something that really turned me around was that it makes verifying strangers much easier. My cousin-in-law was using it to look up the people offering to become au pair to her children. Then also of course, I remembered that we have the same service in the United States, it just costs you ten or fifteen dollars for the information. You can get exactly this information that is up-to-date and accurate by paying for one of those background checks from one of the major providers. Same stuff.

marinabercea 11y ago

The data released contains national identification codes that are confidential. I believe the Swedish equivalent is the 'personnummer'. The sites you indicated appear to be regular person search engines, like the US equivalent Whitepages? Can you show a specific search result, pick any Swedish name you want, that would also list the person's personnummer?

tednoob 11y ago
The 'personnummer' is also publicly available, though the sites usually have to limit access in order to comply with Personuppgiftslagen/PuL (Swedish version of the Data Protection Directive).
rhblake 11y ago
The mentioned websites contain at least the full name, birthdate, registered address and marital status of every Swedish resident (at least above the age of ~16?), with the exception of a very small percentage of people with protected identity (which you can only get if you're under a "serious and concrete threat"). They get this data straight from the government - it's all public. Go to e.g. http://www.ratsit.se/ http://www.ratsit.se/, write "Stockholm" under "Var" and hit "Sök" and click on a name for an example. You won't see the personal identification number ("personnummer") that we use for absolutely everything, however as tednoob mentions you can get access to this by paying for premium access. Or you can call the Swedish Tax Authority. They don't have the right to ask who you are or why you want someone's number.
- bemmu 11y ago
  In Finland even salary and capital gains data is released. Newspapers compile high score lists from it each year. There might be some lower limit to how much you need to earn before your data becomes public. Here's some select tidbits from the data in English: http://yle.fi/uutiset/who_are_finlands_top_earners/8427787 http://yle.fi/uutiset/who_are_finlands_top_earners/8427787
  - vesinisa 11y ago
    You can actually access the public tax information for anyone if you visit the tax office or call their free customer service. Newspapers publicise only the top earners, but nothing stops you from finding out how much your neighbour earned last year in income and capital gains, if you really want to (and I guess quite many want, Finland is after all known as the "land of million of enviers" in addition to the more famous "land of thousand lakes".)
  - staticelf 11y ago
    That is true for the Swedish sites/system as well.
- callesgg 11y ago
  On http://www.upplysning.se/ http://www.upplysning.se/ you can get the full information. But you do have to register for a free account.
jug 11y ago
It will list the "personnummer", but usually not the last 4 digits. This became a big deal a number of years ago, when they did list the complete numbers, and this was changed so that if the complete number is requested, the party you request information about needs to be informed. However, the complete numbers are still public. Just with that caveat nowadays. (unsure if some still sidestep the "new" legislation, there were some more or less shady companies for a while that still informed you of their full numbers)

eng_monkey 11y ago

Amazing. I wonder what the benefit is of having information such as you home address public.

marinabercea 11y ago
I'd argue there is none, because friends and family already know how to reach you. However, both sites display ads.
- mediascreen 11y ago
  I'm not saying there aren't drawbacks, but I can think of two benefits: 1. It makes some forms of investigative journalism easier. For example, there has been a lot of discussion about the potential problems of having most of the influential journalists in Sweden living within a very small "hipster" area in Stockholm. 2. E-commerce companies may decide to only ship to the adress where you are officially registered, making it harder to commit e-commerce fraud.
  - rhblake 11y ago
    On the other hand it's trivial to change someone's official address. Just send a certain form by mail to the tax agency. (Not sure if they send a confirmation to the old address; but if they do, the perpetrator only has to pick someone who's on vacation; hello Twitter & Facebook.)
    - petriw 11y ago
      If you have registered an email / phone number they will send a message there about your changed address. I don't know if they've done this yet but a while ago there were articles about them working on a way to disallow changing your address via the mail form: http://www.dn.se/ekonomi/sa-ska-id-kapningar-forhindras/ http://www.dn.se/ekonomi/sa-ska-id-kapningar-forhindras/
staticelf 11y ago
I would say there is more issues than gains. But sometimes it's nice, I once found someones wallet and was able to find his phone number with the service. Called the guy, he came and picked up his wallet and gave me 500kr as thanks.

dijit 11y ago

Difference being that in Sweden there is a different requiremnet for causing harm (IE; national ID card or passport - or linked bank account) simply having a social security number and address is not enough for identity theft to occur. in other countries they treat SSN's as private, thus they are trusted.

staticelf 11y ago
That's not really true. Often you can order stuff from the internet with only knowing the SSN. You can order on invoice with Klarna for example. Of course, for things that really matter, you need an ID.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- icebraining 11y ago
  But are you liable for those purchases? Can the seller accept some form of post-purchase payment mechanism and go after the SSN holder?
  - rhblake 11y ago
    You're not, but it's up to you to deal with the administrativia (reporting it to the police, disputing the invoice).
- emj 11y ago
  You are not liable but you can't ignore it either, if you do nothing you are going to go to court in the end.
- dagw 11y ago
  I thought Klarna would only allow invoicing if the delivery address matched the registered home address of the SSN owner.
  - staticelf 11y ago

more_original 11y ago

Interesting. In Germany this database does not even exist. Each town keeps its own data and they are not connected. I think the reason for this are the evil uses of data bases by the Gestapo during Nazi times.

germanier 11y ago
Most states keep all data in a state-wide database and all registers are electronically connected. This is the reason why you don't need to deregister anymore when moving within Germany, a new registration will suffice. What there isn't is a single central database and if you want to query data you will need to ask different authorities to get it all.
SixSigma 11y ago
> the evil uses of data bases by the Gestapo during Nazi times. IBM leased them the machines and sold them the punched cards. And then sold them the census data they had collected across Europe during the 1930s. http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/ http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/
nxzero 11y ago
It exist at the very least for intell reasons.
contingencies 11y ago
If you are German and have a passport then you are in a centralized database.
kafkaesq 11y ago
In Germany this database does not even exist. That seems highly doubtful. How do the EU countries know you're a citizen, then, when you cross the border?
- SolarNet 11y ago
  If his claim is correct it seems they would call the town in question. Maybe the EU has a database that includes Germans though.

m00dy 11y ago

Well, I'm turkish and living in Sweden. I can see myself in the dumps as well as in those swedish search services.

fapjacks 11y ago

As an American with a Swedish wife, I was very surprised to learn about the availability of this data. But something that really turned me around was that it makes verifying strangers much easier. My cousin-in-law was using it to look up the people offering to become au pair to her children. Then also of course, I remembered that we have the same service in the United States, it just costs you ten or fifteen dollars for the information. You can get exactly this information that is up-to-date and accurate by paying for one of those background checks from one of the major providers. Same stuff.