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Polemic in Sweden: any knowledge on its owner with Ratsit
:: 18 June, 2007
Many Swedes estimate indeed that the Ratsit.se site goes too far and, although proud of the traditional spirit of opening, they currently make pressure on the suppliers of access to Internet to put some limit to this service which allows to the Swedish Net surfers espionner in an anonymous way and free finances of their compatriots.
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The polemic of Ratsit.se
“Your neighbor knows how much you gain, your brother knows how much you gain and your knowledge can also know if you are driven for arrears of payments. It is deprived and somewhat embarrassing”, declared Hans Karnlof, lawyer of Swedish Data Board Inspection, relayed by Associated Press. This business emerged last November, when the Web site Ratsit.se had started to publish financial information, free, coming from the proper authorities delivering these data by concern of transparency. The site counts since 610.000 registered users and records approximately 50.000 checks per day. Let us recall that Sweden counts only 9 million inhabitants.
The firms charged to control the solvency must declare which they check. But on Ratsit, of the anonymous spies could simply discover financial information by clicking a name and on the Rechercher button. The authorities had then declared that the Swedish laws on the transparency had been exceeded; they thus made pressure on Ratsit and of the similar sites to impose certain restrictions.
At present, information on the personal incomes and the state of the bank account of an individual is always available, but this service is from now on paying, with height of 15,66 € the 10 requests per week, and 2,69 € per additional request. A more detailed report/ratio totals 5,15 € to the unit. On the other hand, there is no more anonymity when the Swedish Net surfer carries out a research. The targeted person is notified by email that somebody asked for information about it and the identity of “the spy” is revealed with “espionné”.
In the name of the transparency
“This type of access to financial information is not to in no case available in other countries that Sweden” declared Karnlof, adding “the visitors that we had coming from Ireland or Germany, for example, were deafened when they intended to speak about that”. It should be noted that before the advent of Internet, the Swedes could very make reach the center taxes to ask similar information. However, “there is a great difference between remaining hidden at the relatively anonymous house of manner, and to move in the center of the taxes and… to require of somebody data on the people whom you want to check” declared Karolina Lassbo, lawyer implied in this business. The latter indicated to have used Ratsit only once, “to have information on what was written on my subject” but its curiosity will have been right of it: “Then, I looked for my friends and of the personalities”.
“I really think that our service is justified bus of the things as the wages must be transparent. (...) A great number of people use our service to negotiate increases”, indicated the executive director of Ratsit, Anders Johansson. Its gate is very famous today in Sweden but also one of the most discussed Web sites, Went back it Board Inspection receiving to many complaints, “in avalanche” ensured Karnlof.
The Swedish law obliges this organization of the taxes required information in the name of the transparency, but it is not specified in which form. It would thus have simply is enough that this last publishes these data on paper and not electronically, which would have required long weeks of digitalization. Following these complaints and in order to avoid a too important conflict, Ratsit thus decided to restrict a little the coverage by these data and the way in which they will be accessible.
Before these new rules are adopted approximately a week ago, the traffic of Ratsit has almost triplet to reach 140.000 visits per day, declared Johansson. Other services will be set up as the search for individuals by telephone numbers either the single people in such or such area.
Release link: http://www.ratsit.se/default.aspx
Tags: ratsit Sweden , finances gate , information wages , data personal ,
