Privacy is Collateral Damage in Sweden's Violent Crime Crackdown

Swedish crackdown on organized crime

Sweden has gone from being one of the most peaceful countries in Europe to being one of the most dangerous with gun violence on a steady rise. The majority of shootings are believed to be linked to conflicts within or between criminal gangs. The deadly trend has caused the Swedish government to take drastic action in a bid to tackle organized criminal gangs.

Actions that are seeing the country become more and more like a surveillance state.

Image source: Statista

The new legislation empowers the police to intercept electronic communications, not only against individuals suspected of crimes but also those who are merely assumed to be planning serious crimes.

Previously, such surveillance state-like tactics were only allowed when there was a reasonable suspicion of a specific crime. Now, the tactics can be employed for a much wider range of situations and during preliminary investigations.

Charlotta Höglund, head of the intelligence unit, Noa said in a press release (in Swedish),

���The new legislation gives us the opportunity to enter already in the planning phase of the criminal chain, for example at a stage when someone assigns an assignment to kill a person. It gives us the conditions to prevent the crime from taking place, but also to access people who are higher up in the criminal networks.”

Given the complexity of crimes committed in network environments, law enforcement believes that early intervention is crucial to curbing violence.

But this new law is not the only measure being introduced.

According to a news report by Euractiv, Sweden is set to launch a new “camera offensive” connecting 2,500 police cameras and drones to facial recognition algorithms.

The move comes after a surge in violent crime, shootings, and explosions that moved the Swedish government to deploy the military to support civilian police.

Potential for abuse by a surveillance state

While the goal of reducing serious and violent crimes is a worthy one, the potential abuse of these new powers raises concerns about privacy and civil liberties.

Now, Swedish police have the ability to access an individual's private communication and data, with only the assumption of planning a future crime.

(Is it all starting to feel a little bit Minority Report, or is it just me?)

Although the police cannot unilaterally decide to employ these preventive coercive measures without court permission, there still is the potential for abuse.

In fact, Sweden's mass surveillance practices have already been ruled as violating the right to privacy. At the time of the ruling by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights, Fredrik Bergman, Head of Centrum för rättvisa stated,

��Our position has always been clear, surveillance activities play a vital role in keeping us safe, but they must be conducted with robust safeguards for privacy and other fundamental rights.”

The other thing to consider is Sweden's role in the wider global surveillance landscape.

Sweden is one of the countries within the "14 Eyes" surveillance alliance, an international intelligence-sharing network that includes countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and others.

This alliance raises concerns about the potential sharing of surveillance data among member nations, allowing them to circumvent domestic legal restrictions on surveillance.

Information gathered under the pretext of preventing serious crimes in Sweden could potentially be shared with other member countries, impacting the privacy of individuals far beyond Sweden's borders. This interconnected network underscores the need for individuals to be vigilant about their privacy rights not only within their own countries but also in the broader context of international surveillance agreements.

Sweden is just one country that seems to be getting comfortable with a surveillance state image. Find out where else your privacy is under attack: The Growing Acceptance of Mass Surveillance and the Threat to Privacy.