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Sweden agrees to exchange fingerprints with the US

A new government decision paves the way for Swedish police to strike a deal with their American counterparts to get permission to use each other's fingerprint databases to look for suspects.

Published: 22 June 2017 08:26 CEST

Sweden agrees to exchange fingerprints with the US

There are around 165,000 fingerprints in Sweden's database, compared to the US' 100 million. Photo: Gorm Kallestad/NTB scanpix/TT

Swedish police have previously had to send a request to the US in order to search for fingerprints in the FBI's database, a process which usually takes almost two weeks, reports Swedish radio.

But after the summer police in the two countries will be able to browse each other's fingerprint registers for crimes for which there is a potential custodial sentence of more than a year in jail.

The background is that the US is allowing visa-free travel for Swedes, among other nationalities, and in exchange has requested to get access to and share police information between countries. Sweden and the US agreed in principle in 2011 to share fingerprint information, but critics have expressed concern over privacy and it has been the topic of two separate government inquiries in Sweden.

Only the Left Party voted against the decision in parliament.

“This means that the US can access Sweden's entire fingerprint register for crimes that have a fairly short sentence in Sweden,” the party's spokesperson on legal issues, Linda Snecker, told Swedish public radio.

But Interior Minister Anders Ygeman argued the agreement would benefit both countries.

“I believe this is mutually beneficial because both Sweden and the US will be safer by us being able to find out who has been at a crime scene,” he told the radio.

Asked why he thought it had taken so long to make the decision, he said: “I think it's to do with biometric information being perceived as sensitive and it is important that there are good rules regulating the exchange of biometric information and that there is far-reaching data protection and privacy protection.”

The decision means that the US federal police will get access to Sweden's 165,000 fingerprints of suspects and convicted criminals, and Sweden will get access to the FBI's register of around 100 million. Sweden has been able to search for fingerprints and DNA in a number of EU countries since 2013.

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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