Saturday, August 30, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

Swedish Supreme Court: Legal databases cannot share verdicts with customers

Published 27 February 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Legal databases such as Ratsit, MrKoll and Lexbase will also be affected by the Supreme Court's decision.
2 minute read

The Swedish Supreme Court has ruled that the news agency Nyhetsbyrån Siren may not disclose court documents to paying customers in its databases. The decision means that the EU’s data protection regulation outweighs the Swedish principle of public access to official documents and may also affect other legal databases such as Lexbase.

In 2024, a number of courts refused to disclose public documents to, among others, Nyhetsbyrån Siren and various legal databases, citing the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The news agency uses these documents for journalistic purposes, but also in its Acta Publica and Be Informed databases, where it is possible to see who has been convicted of various crimes.

At the end of last year, the Upper Norrland Court of Appeal ruled, among other things, that Siren was not entitled to keep a complete register of convictions, and that the social security numbers, names and addresses of individuals could not reach the public via their paying customers. Siren was only allowed to use this information for “journalistic purposes”.

The Supreme Court has now ruled that the Court of Appeal’s decision was correct and that documents cannot be shared with paying customers in a database.

In Sweden, public documents such as court decisions are subject to the principle of public access to official documents, which means that everyone has the right to access public documents. Since Siren and other databases have a publishing license, Swedish law also allows them to store this information and, in practice, to publish it to paying customers. However, under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, personal data may not be stored without the person’s consent. The Supreme Court’s decision involves a reinterpretation of what should carry more weight, the Swedish Constitution or the EU Data Protection Regulation. In this case, it has sided with the EU.

Major impact

– The Supreme Court thus makes the assessment that the system that the legislator wanted to achieve cannot be reconciled with the EU Data Protection Regulation. The Court has therefore interpreted the Swedish regulations so that it is possible to take the GDPR into account when applying the Freedom of Information and Secrecy Act. Legislative measures are needed to achieve a more comprehensive balance between freedom of expression and information and data protection, said Petter Asp, one of the justices who participated in the ruling, in a press release.

The decision is also likely to affect other legal databases such as Ratsit, MrKoll and Lexbase, which currently allow paying customers to search for court decisions.

There may not be access to these databases in the same way in the future, Asp told the tax-funded SVT.

In a study last year, the government’s investigator, Daniel Gustavsson, proposed that constitutional protection should be limited for search services that publish personal data. Such a change in the law would mean a change in the Swedish constitution.

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Number of prisoners in Sweden has doubled in ten years

Published yesterday 9:36
– By Editorial Staff
1 minute read

The number of inmates in Swedish correctional facilities has nearly doubled in the past ten years, according to statistics from the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå). The number of new admissions has also been the highest in almost 30 years.

At the end of 2024, the total number of people in correctional facilities was 8,206 people, 593 women and 7,613 men. This is referred to as having an ongoing prison sentence execution. This represents an increase of 17 percent compared to the previous year. Compared to 2015, the figure has increased by 91 percent.

The number of new admissions, that is, those who have begun serving a prison sentence, has reached a record high of 11,812 people, which is the highest figure in 28 years.

The increase in the number of inmates in correctional facilities since 2017 is primarily explained by the harsher penalties for serious crimes that have been implemented in recent years, says Charlotta Lindström, statistician at the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, in a press release.

Swedish consumer authority wants to ban all telemarketing

Published 28 August 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Eight out of ten Swedes actively try to avoid telemarketing calls in various ways, according to a report by the Swedish Consumer Agency.
2 minute read

The Swedish Consumer Agency (Konsumentverket) is proposing a general ban on all telemarketing in Sweden. Six out of ten Swedes no longer answer calls from unknown numbers due to fear of salespeople, causing people to miss important calls from healthcare services and police.

In the report “Telemarketing – an unwanted, inappropriate and deeply problematic business method” submitted to the Swedish government today, the Consumer Agency proposes that all telemarketing should be banned.

As a second alternative, the agency suggests replacing the current Nix registry (Sweden’s do-not-call list) with an opt-in system, where sales calls would only be allowed to consumers who have actively consented to being contacted.

— Telemarketing deprives the consumer of initiative and control over both what should be purchased and when it should happen. The consumer is taken by surprise and unprepared meets an eager salesperson who usually only has a single product to sell, says Cecilia Tisell, consumer ombudsman and director-general of the Swedish Consumer Agency.

The authority’s investigation shows that eight out of ten Swedes avoid calls from telemarketers in various ways. A clear majority do not answer calls from unknown numbers at all, which has serious consequences.

— What are the consequences when we no longer answer the phone out of concern that it’s telemarketers or scammers calling? We see in the survey that people miss important calls from, for example, healthcare services and the police. This is unfortunate for the individual and causes various societal actors much additional work, explains Tisell.

Contributes to debt problems

Complaints to the Swedish Consumer Agency about misleading and aggressive marketing are significantly higher for telemarketing than for other sales methods. Particularly vulnerable are consumers with disabilities and immigrants who do not speak Swedish properly.

A recurring problem is that consumers and companies often disagree about whether any purchase has actually taken place. While consumers claim they only said yes to information or free offers, companies quickly demand payment for subscriptions.

Lotteries/gambling, loans, electricity contracts, insurance, mobile and TV subscriptions, and health supplements are examples of products still often sold by phone.

— Being enticed and pressured to take loans you may not need and cannot afford is unacceptable. Aggressive marketing of credit contributes to the problematic debt situation we see in society today, states Cecilia Tisell.

Police warn of persistently high violence in Sweden

organized crime

Published 27 August 2025
– By Editorial Staff
The current extensive gang-related violence is now to be considered a permanent feature in Sweden, according to police.
3 minute read

After a series of shootings and explosions in the Stockholm area in recent weeks, police do not want to speak of a temporary wave of violence. Instead, the regional police chief describes the situation as a “constantly high level of violence in Sweden”.

Upplands Väsby, Kallhäll, Viksjö, Bromma and Sätra – the list of places in the Stockholm area that have been hit by shootings and bombings recently continues to grow.

Most recently, during the night leading to Wednesday, an extensive police operation was underway in Viksjö, northwest of Stockholm, after a shooting at a gas station where two people were injured. Shortly before, on August 25, two people were shot dead in a car in a parking lot in nearby Kallhäll. Police cannot yet answer whether there are connections between the various incidents.

Despite the recent concentration of violent crimes in northern Stockholm, police do not want to use the term “wave of violence” to describe the development.

— I would rather say that we have seen a number of completed crimes in a short time and with a clear geographical limitation to northern Stockholm, says Magnus Mowitz, regional police chief for Stockholm north, on Swedish public television SVT’s morning show.

He emphasizes that police have simultaneously succeeded in preventing a series of planned violent crimes, but acknowledges the grim reality:

— The term wave of violence is not something we use, however we can see that there are violent crimes that continuously occur. We have a constantly high level of violence in Sweden, he states.

Thousands of gang criminals

Before the 1990s, gang crime was essentially an unknown phenomenon in Sweden, where the organized crime that did exist was mainly linked to motorcycle gangs and where violent confrontations with firearms and explosives on open streets were virtually non-existent. Sweden was long one of Europe’s safest countries with one of the world’s lowest murder rates.

Over the past three decades, however, the situation has changed dramatically. In pace with unlimited mass immigration from conflict-affected areas in the Third World, criminal networks have been established in suburbs around the country.

From being concentrated in the metropolitan areas’ vulnerable neighborhoods, gang crime has now spread to virtually all Swedish cities of any size, and police estimate that today the number of active individuals in the criminal networks amounts to more than 14,000 individuals – from Malmö in the south to Kiruna in the north.

Turning over multi-billion amounts annually

The criminal networks are not only engaged in spectacular bombings and murders. Drug trafficking still forms the backbone of the operations, but the gangs have significantly diversified their criminal activities. Extortion of business owners, particularly in the suburbs, has become increasingly common, and welfare fraud through fake assistance companies and other schemes drain billions from taxpayers every year.

Human trafficking, arms smuggling, theft gangs and receiving stolen goods are also part of the repertoire, while money laundering occurs through real estate investments, currency exchange offices and cryptocurrencies.

Exactly how much money organized crime turns over each year is impossible to answer, but estimates from police suggest it amounts to approximately €9-14 billion annually.

Swedish young bulls receive feed supplement to reduce methane emissions

The exaggerated climate crisis

Published 26 August 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Anna Hessle from SLU (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) admits herself that it becomes a bit strange
2 minute read

Swedish young bulls are receiving a new feed supplement to reduce their methane emissions. The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) is currently testing the product in Skara, Sweden.

In Skara, researchers are investigating whether a new feed additive can reduce young bulls’ methane emissions and make the animals more “environmentally friendly”. The feed supplement is manufactured in Sweden and is reportedly significantly cheaper than other alternatives available on the market.

Anna Hessle from SLU acknowledges that the climate discussion has gotten the “wrong focus” but still hopes for good results.

It has become somewhat the case that ruminants have been portrayed as climate villains, even though I personally perhaps think that’s a bit of the wrong focus since it’s really about us having to reduce our fossil fuel emissions, she tells tax-funded Radio Sweden (SR) and continues:

But then the industry can show its good will by trying to reduce emissions even if one might bluntly think that the problems lie elsewhere.

British anger against Arla

The food industry, particularly regarding dairy cows, has long been singled out and accused of being a so-called environmental villain. Recently, the feed supplement Bovaer was developed, with help from financing by billionaire Bill Gates, which is also supposed to reduce cows’ methane emissions by making them fart and burp less.

Danish-Swedish dairy company Arla, for example, began giving it to British cows last year, which led to very harsh criticism from the public and many calls to boycott the company. Bovaer is also used for Swedish cows, but currently to a lesser extent than in the United Kingdom.

When the bulls are slaughtered at the beginning of next year, the project in Skara will be evaluated, but results are already visible when measuring methane emissions in the animals’ exhaled air.

That can be seen in the preliminary data we’ve received, says Hessle.

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