Little man from Dala, some Swedish debate, and two pieces of chocolate
I had a business dinner at the restaurant DalaNisse's Wednesday evening. Nisse is a nickname for Nils but also means "little man." At Christams some of the kids dress up in a Santa Claus suit... They are called "Santa Nisses" (translated to English).
I was a quiet listener to the table talk, when not talking business. I had thought that all Swedes had basically the same political and social views. Yet I listened as two debated the merits and demerits of the state owned liquor monopoly System Bolaget. One felt that the buying power and the state regulated profit margins was good for the average guy but he allowed that for the discriminating drinker with money, the selection might be poor. The other argued that the choice in a free market was much better and that prices were approximately the same on the mass marketed brands due to competive pressures, which drive profit margins down.
Then they repeated the debate about the state owned monoploy Apoteket, the pharmacy. One felt that the high regulation prevents abuse, accidents, and victimization of people by the vicious advertizing and dubious claims of big pharma. The other thought it was awfully nice to be able to conviently buy ibuprofen in a grocery store.
Then the discussion took a turn when I was expressing some admiration for the single social security number, called personnummer, which accesses everything from library records to bank records to tax records to video rental to ... everything. This seemed to be a sore spot. Apparently there have been examples of government abuse in countries with a similar system. It wasn't quite sure whether there were abuses in Sweden or not. Perhaps one of my Swedish readers could comment....
Many of us at the dinner table ordered "Well hung steak" which I discovered doesn't refer to maleness of the bovine. It means the meat was air cured, which is supposed to tenderize it, by hanging from a hook. Yummee.
Ok, that's all about the restaurant DalaNisse. Fast forward to Saturday evening. We had some Swedish friends onver and they brought a box assorted chocolates by Maribu, called the Aladdin box. We were told that this is a standard gift brought to party hosts. These chocalates, made in Sweden, are very popular with Swedes. The box has two layers of assorted treats. However, most Swedes have a tradition that you can't select from the bottom layer until the first layer in empty. The first layer has two pieces that most people dislike: chocolate covered cherries in a liquor flavored syrup. This means that sometimes one must wait till someone finally braves it and picks the "undesirables."
One more fast forward to Sunday. We met some new friends through the American Women's Society that invited us to have coffee. Their flat was fantastic! It was probably the most stunning residence we've been in in Sweden...with nice views of Mälaren. The inside was expensively upscale. They had decorated with unique furniture, lights, and art.
In other news...we finally got some snow...
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1 comment:
I don't see any bigger danger of abuse with the 'personnummer' system than with any other identification system. The number system is smarter because it only takes one item to identify a given person, as if you do it by name there is a chance of several persons with the same name. Then you have to go by address, date of birth etc. With the Swedish number system you also have the date of birth built into the number which could be both a good and a bad thing. In the computer world its of course very attractive to have a defined format and definition of string positions as with 'personnummer'. To keep the personal integrity, it's becoming more and more common when registering for more trivial requirements, that you don't have to give out the four last digits of your 'personnummer'. Let's say you attend an evening class in Swedish and you have to fill out a registration form. Then the 'personnummer' field would be used to separate two or more possible 'Lars Andersson'. In this case the last four digits are irrelevant (if they don't have the same date of birth, which is not very likely).
As for abuse, it's a question of connectivity and the right to collect information from different databases. If this is done by number or name, I don't see the difference. It's not 'easier' for a computer to find the information using 'personnummer' than using something else. If your local video rental store has the technical capability to connect to a hospital and the rights to login and collect your medical file, then they can do it whatever identification system you use.
Has abuse occurred? is it occurring? Probably, but we just don't know about it. If all information systems uses the same identification key (the personnummer) as opposed to a different key in every system, then it's of course much easier for a hacker to find information about a certain individual. The question is how we protect us against hacking and how we log information retrieval. In hospitals it is strictly regulated who can access a patients file. I remember a case many years ago where a non-authorized nurse accessed a patient's file. She was revealed by the access logs and sentenced in court.
So I agree with you, it's a well working, easy to use system (everybody remembers their 'personnummer') that clearly has facilitated a lot of administration and otherwise time consuming tasks. The responsibility lies with the authorities and the way information is allowed to be search, cross referenced and used. Usually it is people that has something to hide that complain about invasion of their privacy.
-h2-
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