Comment by embedding-shape
9 hours ago
> my data
You haven't sufficiently manage to enter the mindset of a Swede. Your salary information isn't "your data" in the first place, it's public information. The company is selling public information if you have this mindset, does it still make sense to make it illegal then?
I think what you want to argue for, is for salary information to not be public data anymore. Selling people's private data without authorization (or even handling it incorrectly) is already illegal and actively punished today when it happens, via the long and slow arm of the law.
Any data that personally identifies information about an individual is personal data.
That is not an opinion. That is a fact. It's not public information, and anyone arguing that is categorically, provably, wrong.
The entire country of Sweden can collectively come together and decide that 1+1=3, and I would give that about as much thought as these semantic games around private and personal data.
It is considered personal data by the likes of the EU, the issue however a pesky little thing called the Swedish Constitution, specifically chapter 2 of the "Freedom of the Press Act" which basically states, in very simple terms:
1. Everyone(1) shall be entitled to have free access to official documents.
2. Official documents are all(2) documents held and produced by the authorities.
(1)=Everyone includes everyone in the world, you do not have to live in Sweden or be a citizen and you do not have to identify yourself.
(2)=Some restrictions apply (natsec, medical, etc).
In short, most government databases are databases of "official documents", including the citizenship registry maintained by the tax authorities.
Downside: All the mundane information about you is public property; address, birthdate, tax records, school grades, drivers license, passport photograph, martial status, court cases and pretty much everything else you can't think of.
Upside: Applies to all politicians as well.
I didn’t know that is enshrined in the Swedish constitution. I’m staring to like Sweden even more
Disturbing. Serious lack of respect for the rights of the citizenry of the country to privacy.
Yeah, you can either assume your worldview is the only one that exists, then seemingly not understand why certain decisions are made or how things work elsewhere, and everything looks stupid and doesn't make sense to you. Or you can try to understand things from other perspectives, and maybe actually understand the reasoning behind it and what it means.
What is and isn't personal data is subjective, regardless what "truth" you believe you're sitting on. I won't claim you're right/wrong as there is no such concept for subjective things, I suggest if you want to understand instead of wave your hands around or whatever you're doing, you'd try to see things from another's perspective and forgo dogmas.
> What is and isn't personal data is subjective, regardless what "truth" you believe you're sitting on
Ontological games are just that - games. Personal and public data is not an opinion, and it's not subjective.
I legitimately think that it's harder to have a coherent definition of a chair than to define personally-identifying vs anonymous data, and pretending otherwise is stupid.