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CRIME

Stockholm world’s eighth safest city: study

Stockholm is one of the world's safest cities according to a new ranking. But its move towards becoming a smart city could potentially leave it vulnerable to cyber attacks.

Published: 13 October 2017 17:16 CEST
Stockholm world's eighth safest city: study
Stockholm is the world's eighth safest city, according to a new ranking. Photo: Linus Sundahl-Djerf/SvD/TT

The 2017 Safe Cities Index ranks 60 cities across 49 indicators covering aspects of security in four domains: digital, health, infrastructure and personal security.

Stockholm – the only Swedish city assessed – placed eighth in the ranking topped by Tokyo, Singapore and Osaka. It was joined in the top-ten by two other European countries (Amsterdam in sixth and Zurich in tenth) and Toronto, Melbourne, Sydney, Hong Kong.

The Swedish capital performed the best in the infrastructure sub-category (fourth place), followed by personal security (ninth), health (tenth) and digital security (13th place).

“Stockholm's infrastructure is very sound, but it is not in the top-ten on cyber security and people might be very concerned that it ranks lower than expected on health,” Dan Smith, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and one of the experts interviewed for the report, told The Local.

Home to many successful tech and IT startups, such as Spotify, iZettle and Klarna, Stockholm has made a name for itself as a rising star on the digital scene, with plans to become a so-called “smart city” and more and more of its financial transactions carried out digitally in the move towards a “cashless society“.

But the Safe Cities Index stresses the need for cities to improve their digital security at the same pace as they develop smart solutions for citizens. This message perhaps hits close to home for Sweden, where several transport agencies were targeted in a cyber attack this week, causing website crashes and train delays.

“It's precisely those cities that are trying to be smart that are vulnerable to attacks,” said Smith.

“But it makes sense that the less cash you have in circulation the less cash is going to be stolen from our pockets, and the more transactions we do online the more is going to be stolen online – that's criminal logic. So you can't just be smart, as the study argues you have to be double smart.”

READ ALSO: Meet the mayor who wants to turn Stockholm into the world's smartest city

In terms of personal security, Stockholm is number nine in the global list (which is topped by Singapore, Wellington and Osaka) and the top country in Europe ahead of Amsterdam. At the bottom is Karachi, with Athens being the least safe city in the European Union in the sub-category (41th place).

Recent terror attacks in Europe affect the personal security rankings (Stockholm and Amsterdam are in fact the only European cities in the top-ten), but the study points out that terror deaths are far fewer than other violence – globally there were 30,000 deaths in terror attacks in 2015 compared to 440,000 homicide deaths. The Stockholm region had 26 cases of deadly violence in 2016, according to Sweden's crime statistics.

Despite its relative safety, and the fact that deadly violence is decreasing, Sweden has hit international headlines in the past year as alt-right media have tried to link high immigration to crime in the Nordic country.

“These myths being peddled to make political points are simply not true. It's painted by some through rose-tinted glasses and by others as a kind of dystopia and neither has got it right: it's not a Social Democratic paradise, nor socialist hell. If you live in Stockholm and experience the things that work well and the things that don't, it almost seems a bit silly,” said Stockholm-based Smith, who has lived most of his adult life in the UK.

IN STATS: Deadly violence in Sweden in the 2000s

That said, a failed suicide bombing in Stockholm in 2010 and the terror attack on April 7th 2017, in which a man drove a truck down a shopping street, killing five, in an attack that shook the nation, may force Sweden to think differently about safety and security in its capital city, as well as in the rest of the country.

“There is still a discussion to be had about how to achieve reasonable security in places where a lot of people gather. Stockholm has had a very easy ride, and the event this year brought home that Stockholm like any other city is vulnerable to this,” said Smith.

For example, while CCTV is common in some European countries, Sweden has generally been restrictive, but has increased its use of cameras in recent years to curb drug crime and gang shootings in suburbs.

“A question to ask is if there are things that can be done to ensure people are safe without taking away our personal freedoms or our way of life?” explained Smith.

“In many respects it is about finding the balance in different things: what we want to do as citizens and what degree of cost we should be paying, not just financial costs but personal freedom. In general terms Stockholm has got that balance pretty good, I think most expats would say that compared to back home it for example feels safer going out in the evening.”

POLICE

Swedish police leaks scandal: How gang criminals got hold of sensitive information

A new report in Dagens Nyheter has revealed over 514 suspected leaks of sensitive information from at least 30 members of the police force to criminals since 2018. Here's what we know so far.

Published: 30 April 2024 12:28 CEST
Updated: 30 April 2024 15:45 CEST
Swedish police leaks scandal: How gang criminals got hold of sensitive information

What’s happened?

According to an investigative report by newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN), multiple gang members have infiltrated the police force by, for example, dating police employees, or using family connections to gain access to sensitive information about ongoing cases.

The first article in DN’s series focuses on a woman the newspaper calls Elin, who met a man, Jonas (not his real name), on a dating app when she had one year left of her police education. She falls in love, but his only goal with the relationship is to get a source within the police force which he can use for access to secret information.

Over the course of four years until she was caught, she made multiple illegal searches in the police register for Jonas, his associates and enemies, as well as providing him with information on ongoing investigations against him.

Other cases investigated by the newspaper include a border guard who sold classified information to gangs, a police officer who leaked information to what DN describes as “one of Sweden’s most notorious criminals” and an investigator who was dating a man she was investigating, who she shared screenshots of sensitive information with.

In another case, the police received a tip-off that information was being leaked to the Hells Angels motorcycle gang. It was discovered that a group of five alarm operators had made an unusually high number of searches for members of the Hells Angels, who were later discovered to have connections with the gang that they had lied about during their background checks.

What have the consequences of these leaks been?

In some cases, the leaks preceded revenge attacks on enemies of the gang member involved in the relationship. In other cases, the gang members’ enemies disappeared or were murdered.

Some of the people from the police force involved in the leaks were sentenced to fines for illegal data access or breaches of professional secrecy, while the evidence against others was not sufficient to prosecute. 

At least 30 employees had for different reasons been considered “security risks” and either resigned or were forced to quit, the newspaper reported, with over 514 suspected leaks taking place from police to criminals since 2018.

How do criminals find police officers?

According to DN, they look for things that can be used as blackmail, like police officers who buy drugs, or set “honey traps”, like the one used against Elin, where they meet police officers or students on dating apps and start a relationship.

“You take Tinder, for example, and set your search radius so the police school is in the centre. When you get a match, it’s easy to check if it’s a student, through class lists or how they present themselves on social media. They’re proud of their line of work,” Jonas told DN.

They might also use their family connections to put pressure on relatives who work in the police force.

Why is this important?

It’s important because Sweden has seen a rise in gang-related violence in recent years, with a surge in shootings and bombings as gangs fight for control over different drug markets.

Swedes also have a high level of trust in the police force – 72 percent according to a 2024 study by Medieakademin, topping the list of state authorities, with a higher level of trust than universities, healthcare, the courts and even the Swedish church. This was five percent higher than in 2023.

Although the vast majority of police officers do not leak information to criminal networks, Sweden does not have a history of organised crime infiltrating the police force, so officials are keeping a close eye on these leaks to make sure they don’t become more common.

On April 29th, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told TT newswire that the leaks were “very serious”, potentially putting trust in the police force at risk.

“There are many great risks and one is that trust in police declines, that people get the idea that mafia-like methods are used to infiltrate law enforcement,” he said, before adding that he was unable to say whether it constituted a threat to national security or not purely based on the initial DN article.

“But the mere suspicion of these types of connections are damaging,” he told the newswire.

What happens now?

Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer told DN that he planned to call a meeting with police leadership about the reports, which he described as “extremely serious”.

“[At that meeting] we will consider the need for further measures,” he said.

“Leaking sensitive information to criminals is against the law and can have very damaging consequences for the work of the police force,” Strömmer told DN, adding that it could undermine trust in the police and “damage democracy”.

Last summer, the government increased the penalty for breaching professional secrecy, and a special investigator was tasked with looking at a potential reform of the rules on corruption and professional misconduct in February – the Crime Prevention Council is also involved in that investigation, where it has been asked to provide information on how gangs use government employees.

“Protecting the integrity of the justice system against infiltration and other security threats is a central part of the new national strategy against organised crime that the government decided on earlier this year, and it is given the highest priority in our assignments to the authorities,” Strömmer told the newspaper.

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