Poor Privacy Rights in Scandinavia

The recently published Privacy and Human Rights Report 2007 reveals that privacy rights in Norway, Sweden and Denmark are unsatisfactory.

The report is made by the Electronic Privacy Information Centre and Privacy International. It compares the level of privacy rights in 47 countries in order to enable those countries with weak privacy protection to learn from the others. The criteria were for instance: is privacy protection constitutional, how privacy protection is enforced, degree of surveillance, storage of technical data, etc.

Norway is especially criticized for having a fingerprint register for asylum seekers, which is also made available to the police. Moreover, extensive data-sharing between various public agencies reduces Norwegian privacy protection, according to the report. Denmark and Sweden are criticized for weak protection of health information, lack of privacy protection at the workplace and for registering fingerprints of demonstrators.

Sources

Report from Privacy International