Swedish Government Trying to Limit Public Access to Crime Facts

Hat tip Fria Tider


Swedish Riksdag (Parliament) Strockholm


I have translated the below link (Fria Tider) from Swedish into English. It concerns the Swedish government's efforts to limit public access to a site that provides information on criminal histories, convictions and the ethnicity of perpetrators, a significant issue in Sweden, where immigrants are responsible for disproportionate share of the crime and media and police routinely refer to violators as "ungdomer" (youth)

http://www.friatider.se/regeringen-vill-f-rbjuda-svenskar-fr-n-att-s-ka-p-brottm-lsdomar-och-kriminellas-etnicitet

The Government wants to prohibit Swedes from searching for criminal convictions and the ethnicity of criminals

Published December 4, 2017 at 12.48


DOMESTIC. The government is now proposing a bill that includes prohibiting private individuals from using search services where(the public) can map such things as crime and ethnic origin. It concerns sites like Lexbase.

"The right to read these public documents easily via Lexbase will, if the proposal is adopted, be reserved for professional entities, such as lawyers, journalists and companies," Lexbase writes in a statementt on Monday.

Journalists and left-wing groups such as AFA have long had access to massive databases that store sensitive data about private individuals' government contacts.

But when the Lexbase site was launched in 2014, and allowed ordinary individuals to do the same kind of searches, a media storm broke out after which the politicians began to investigate the issue.
The bill now presented by the government means, among other things, that search services containing personal data with "integrity-sensitive character" should be prohibited - for the public to use.
It's about sites on the internet that deal with information such as political opinions, religion, skin color, health, sexual orientation or criminal convictions, writes TT.

The site mentioned above is just Lexbase, which makes (criminal court) judgements searchable online. Lexbase has a certificate of issue and is therefore protected by the foundations at present. But the government wants to change the foundation protection.

However, journalists will not be affected by the new law. "Journalist activities should not be affected by any ban," said Minister of Justice Morgan Johansson (S), according to TT. How to judge which searches are journalistic and not will become a "question of implementation", he explains.
The bill thus does not mean a total ban on Lexbase, except for limiting the service to so-called professional users.

"Lexbase will be able to continue to publish online judgments. However, the proposal means that the public, ie, an ordinary person, is prohibited from using sites such as Lexbase. The right to easily access Lexbase will, if the proposal is assumed, be reserved for professional entities, such as lawyers, journalists and various companies, " writes Lexbase in a statement on Monday.

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I attempted to create an account on Lexbase, which calls itself Sweden largest personal database, but it requires payments.