Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

GOVERNMENT

Curb on online income snoopers moves closer

The Swedish parliament's Constitutional Committee has approved a law change that will make it harder to find out other people's incomes online.

Published: 25 May 2010 15:13 CEST

The proposal aims to place restrictions on the users of services providing online credit reports on individuals. Those who want credit information this way must have a “legitimate need for information” under the government’s Council on Legislation’s (Lagråd) changes.

In the future, the person whose information is being sought must also be informed about what has been disclosed. According to Ask, the changes will protect individuals privacy better than current means.

One consequence of the law is that it would be harder for journalists to investigate the finances of public figures such as politicians, newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported.

Social Democrat Thomas Bodström, a former justice minister, has been very critical of the proposal. He told Expressen that the new law, by extension, implies “a breeding ground for corruption.”

“The Moderates do not want to disclose contributions to political parties and now they do not want us to investigate individuals,” Bodström told Expressen. “To further limit transparency is deeply unfortunate. There is nothing better than transparency against corruption.”

The case will now proceed to the finance committee, which also has a centre-right majority. Sweden’s parliament, the Riksdag, will debate and vote on the issue in June.

The right-wing majority in the constitutional committee would like to delay the change so that it begins at year-end, instead of as scheduled in August.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

Was Norway ill prepared for the Covid-19 pandemic?

Photo by Eirik Skarstein on Unsplash

The 450-page report was submitted to Prime Minister Erna Solberg by medical professor Stener Kvinnsland, who led the review.

The commission found that, generally, Norway had handled the pandemic well compared to the rest of Europe. That was in part due to citizens taking infection control measures on board.

“After a year of pandemic, Norway is among the countries in Europe with the lowest mortality and lowest economic impact. The authorities could not have succeeded if the population had not supported the infection control measures;” the report states.

However, the commission’s report also outlined that Norway did not properly prepare itself for the pandemic.

“The authorities knew that a pandemic was the most likely national crisis to have the most negative consequences. Nevertheless, they were not prepared when the extensive and serious Covid-19 pandemic came,” it said.

Prime Minister Erna Solberg said during an interview with the commission, conducted as part of its work, that the government did not have an infection control strategy of its own.

“We had a ‘we have to deal with a difficult situation’ strategy. We had to do everything we could to gain control and get the infection down. It was really only at the end of March (2020) that we found the more long-term strategy,” she told the commission.

Low stocks of personal protective equipment were another source of criticism in the report.

“The government knew that it would in all probability be difficult to obtain infection control equipment in the event of a pandemic. Nevertheless, the warehouses were almost empty,” Kvinnsland said at a press conference.

Norwegian health authorities were praised for the swiftness with which they implemented infection control measures. But the commission said that the decision should have been formally made by the government, rather than the Norwegian Directorate of Health.

READ MORE: Norway saw fewer hospital patients in 2020 despite pandemic

The implementation of restrictions in March 2020 was critiqued for failing to ensure that “infection control measures were in line with the constitution and human rights.”

One-fifth of municipalities in Norway lacked a functioning plan in the event of a pandemic according to the report, and the government did not provide enough support to municipalities.

“We believe that government paid too little attention to the municipalities. The municipalities were given much larger tasks than they could have prepared for,” Kvinnsland said.

The report was also critical of Norway’s lack of a plan for dealing with imported infections in autumn 2020.

“The government lacked a plan to deal with imported infections when there was a new wave of infections in Europe in the autumn of 2020,” the report found.

“When the government eased infection control measures towards the summer of 2020, they made many assessments individually. The government did not consider the sum of the reliefs and it had no plan to deal with increasing cross-border infection,” it added.

The report also concluded that Norway allowed itself to be too easily lobbied by business when deciding to ease border restrictions last summer.

The division of roles in handling aspects of the pandemic was scrutinised in the report. Here, the division of responsibilities between the Ministry of Health and Care Services, The Norwegian Directorate of Health and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health were unclear.

The prime minister has asked the commission to continue its work.

“We are not done with the pandemic yet. Therefore, it is natural that the commission submits a final report. There will also be topics where the learning points can only be drawn later,” Solberg said.

Url copied to clipboard!