Comment by picafrost

Uff, COBOL written in Norwegian, talk about a narrow target to hit for hiring :)

Because tax is not your bill from 'government Corp ', its your contribution to the community, to your tribe. And we have explicit goals for this, besides bringing revenue (like the strongest back should carry the heaviest burden).

When we have communal contributions in other settings, your contribution is usually not a secret.

It is meant to give the tax system more legitimacy, that you don't gave to wonder if people sneak out of their contribution, you can check. It also leads to yearly debates about the tax system as the list of the richest(usually inherited) is published together with what they pay in income tax vs wealth tax.

Previously you could check up anyone anonymous. These days you have to log inn, and they get a notification. But the list of the richest and their tax contribution gets published in the newspaper.

Tax data is government data. Government data is public data. Instead of asking "what's the reason for making something public" the question is "what's the reason for making a carveout for some specific data to make it secret"

People in safe countries generally do not worry about kidnappings.

why would anyone kidnap you if they own as much as you ?

There used to be a lot more of that, but a system was put in place where you have to identify yourself with electronic ID to access the information, and the information is logged so the other party can see it.

Nowadays I think mostly journalists use it to pull up information about politicians and other people that are in the public spotlight. There are of course the yearly "richest people in Norway" lists in various categories.

> They'd say that if you earn a lot, you shouldn't take a cheap housing.

I think a lot of "humbleness" is also enforced this way, in the US seems normal (or even some European countries) to flaunt your wealth, and others seem more or less OK with it, while in Sweden it's much more socially unacceptable to in any sort of way brag about being rich, or showing that off. Humble-richness is OK and tolerated, but flagrantly displaying your wealth among the public is generally frowned upon.

So together with that, living in a average neighborhood but have a house that sticks out as clearly "rich person's house" will gain you evil looks from your neighbors, as you're "supposed to" live in a different neighborhood where neighbors look more equal, otherwise you again stick out, which is cause for friction culturally.

Lots of culture in Sweden is less about "lets correctly solve the problem" and more "lets ensure the gaping holes aren't so visible for everyone, so we can ignore it properly".

Making snark comments about that sounds very unlikely. More likely they'd have respect for someone living frugally and not showing off. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante

Making snarky comments about it, no, not really. Will some people snoop around? Yes, nosy people can be found everywhere.

Yes and no. You get notified if someone else actually asks for your revenue info and so in practice nobody actually does it.

We don't talk to our neighbours.

What is the harm in this case? Shit people are shit even without information. They would be snark about something else then.

Yep, that tracks.

There's also the underlying current of Jantelagen (Law of Jante) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante

Let's not forget white pages, those door stopper telephone books containing everyone's name, phone and address that everyone had (along with yellow pages for business listings).

With cryptographic keys, normally stored on a smartphone. BankID[0] is the most common solution, but there are others. I personally use biometric 2fa to log in, and PIN to sign contracts or pay.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BankID_(Sweden)

Just a few years ago this was about to change in Sweden.

But they didn't change it, because "women should be able to look up the men that they date".

The root cause of identity theft in USA and some other places is the lack of "proper" national identity and the associated use of various personal "secrets" (not that secret) for identity verification because there are no good easy other ways.

Businesses in Scandinavia and many other countries would not treat someone knowing your personal information as any evidence of identity (because it's not); having all that information is not sufficient to impersonate you there - identity theft does happen but it would require stealing or forging physical documents or actual credentials to things like bank accounts; knowing all of what your mother or spouse would know is not enough to e.g. get credit or get valuable goods in your name.

"Identity theft" is newspeak right up there with "intellectual property". It serves the sole purpose of diminishing real theft. If someone says "we gave all your money to this other guy, but it's not our fault because he had stolen your identity" doesn't make it so. There are cases of mistaken identity, and with criminal intentions, but there is also an enormous majority of not checking identity because someone was lazy.

Just knowing someone's name, address, and ID number isn't enough to like, open a bank account in their name or such. You'd need a proper ID card or passport for that. Similar thing with most businesses if you try to pay for some product with credit, they won't accept just a few digits and a pinky promise, you'll need to identify yourself properly (the BankID app for instance).

Just knowing the personal number is not enough to do much with. To get access to services, verify who you are on when talking to companies there is a verification step, most commonly with the BankID app.

Visual example: https://images.ctfassets.net/b2dmfxhmyqno/1cD0YDHjd9DGZnWfjH...

Identity theft and spam still happens, just not through knowing the personal number.

We just change our identity every three years or so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK2gKuqbOHo

Unlike American SSNs, which are secret and wield certain authoritative powers, a Scandinavian "person number" is neither secret nor authoritative. Common misconception.

Of course ID theft happens but I think one thing that differs is that in Sweden it is harder to get a loan without verification that you are who you are (for example by Swedish BankID wish is an electronic id) while in US it seems you can take a loan if you just know someone’s social security number

It's just a unique ID of a person, it's not a password. I don't see how you can be confused by this.

they don't handle it at all. they let it go on. you for example have hundreds of people falsely registering their place of residence as somebody else's home, which causes massive problems for that home owner or apartment resident, and there is nothing done about it at all.

These types of laws are designed for the 1950s where there were natural barriers to acquiring and disseminating information. There is no attempt whatsoever to update them and to reduce harm caused to the average citizen today.

> How do they handle identity thefts

By just accepting it as a normal fact of life that you will have some random stuff ordered in your name sooner or later with an invoice you'll have to dispute. Happened to a relative of mine, police do not care unless they order things above a certain value, without a police report you cannot get free ID protection, and then you'll have to sit for a long time in phone queues trying to cancel a subscription for a streaming service or whatever they ordered while get thrown around by support reps who go "you SURE you or someone in your family didn't order this?"