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Swedes revolt against online snooping

2007-06-18 12:08:58

By LOUISE NORDSTROM, Associated Press Writer Sun Jun 17, 2:21 PM ET

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Want to know how much your boss earns? Or whether your

daughter's fiance is in debt? For Swedes, it takes just a few clicks on the

Internet to find out.

But many feel the Web has taken things too far, and proud though they are of

Sweden's unusual history of openness, they have pressured providers to put some

limits on a service that allowed Swedes to snoop through each other's finances

anonymously and free of charge.

"Your neighbor knows what you're making, your brother-in law knows what you're

making, and people around you can know whether you're on any records for

outstanding payments. It's private and a bit embarrassing," said Hans Karnlof,

a lawyer at the Swedish Data Inspection Board.

Things came to a head in November when a Swedish Web site, Ratsit.se, started

publishing financial details, free of charge, from the national tax authority.

The site has some 610,000 registered users in a country of 9 million and

handled an average of 50,000 online credit checks a day.

Regular credit check companies are required to notify those they check. But on

Ratsit, anonymous snoops could uncover financial information simply by typing

in a name and clicking "search."

Authorities said Sweden's transparency laws were being abused, and pressured

Ratsit and similar Web sites to impose some restrictions.

Information on personal income and debt is still available, but now costs money

$21 for 10 requests a week, and $3.60 for each additional request. A more

extensive report, including information on financial and property assets, costs

$6.90 per search.

And there's no more anonymity; anyone whose finances are viewed will be

notified by mail and told who asked.

Openness is ingrained in Swedish society its freedom of information act dates

to 1766. Today Swedes have unfettered access to almost all records that the

state keeps on the population. Only some 10,000 people who live under some form

of threat, are excluded from the public records.

"This type of access to financial information is in no way available in other

countries like it is here," said Karnlof, the data board's lawyer. "Visitors

we've had from Ireland and Germany, for example their jaws just drop when

they hear about it."

But until the Internet arrived, citizens had to visit the local tax office to

ask about others' finances.

"There's a big difference between sitting hidden at home and being reasonably

anonymous, and trotting off to the tax office and ... telling a person

eye-to-eye whom you want to check," said Karolina Lassbo, a 27-year-old lawyer.

Lassbo said she used Ratsit once "because I wanted to see what it said about

me." But her curiosity got the better of her: "Then I checked friends and

celebrities."

"I do think our service is justified because things like wages should be

transparent," said Ratsit's chief executive, Anders Johansson. Employers use it

to check whether potential hires are in debt, he said, and "A lot of people use

it to negotiate their pay."

Ratsit's service was made possible by a 2003 change in the law protecting media

freedom, which allowed Web sites to get publishing rights. That enabled Ratsit

to become one of Sweden's most popular Web sites, but also one of the most

controversial.

The Data Inspection Board was inundated with complaints, "like an avalanche,"

said Karnlof.

Apart from the privacy issue, fears that the online openness would aid identity

thieves also pushed the National Tax Board into action.

While the law obliges the board to give out tax information, it doesn't say in

what form. So tax authorities simply threatened to supply the information on

paper, instead of electronically, which would have forced credit checkers to

scan millions of records.

To avoid the hassle, the companies agreed to the new restrictions on how the

material is accessed.

Before the new rules kicked in a week ago, Ratsit's traffic nearly tripled to

over 140,000 hits a day, said Johansson, the company boss.

Ratsit expects credit-snooping to fall off by half, but is offering new

attractions, such as a "singles index" showing how many people in a particular

zip code live alone. It plans to include phone numbers.