Inadequate identity investigations in Sweden

The Swedish National Audit Office (“the Swedish NAO”) has examined how government agencies work when the identity of a person entering Sweden needs to be established. The audit focuses on aspects such as border controls, population registration and applications for residence permits and citizenship.

The Swedish NAO’s overall assessment is that the agencies’ efforts are not sufficiently effective to ensure establishing a correct and unique identity.

For example, the audit shows that:

• the audited agencies lack important skills
• the availability of technical equipment and digital system support is inadequate
• there are legal barriers to storing and performing searches on biometric information that ensures that a person does not appear under multiple identities.

These shortcomings can have implications in many areas, such as people being granted a residence permit in Sweden without being entitled to one. They also pose risks of identity-related crime, threats to Sweden’s security and undue payments from welfare systems.

The deficiencies at the Swedish Migration Agency, the Swedish Tax Agency and the National Government Service Centre are particularly serious, as their work is crucial for their own and other agencies’ future decisions and measures. The Swedish Tax Agency proceeds on the basis of the identity established by the Swedish Migration Agency in population registration, and also on the basis of the National Government Service Centre’s checks of identity documents that they perform on behalf of the Swedish Tax Agency. The decisions of the Swedish Social Insurance Agency and the Swedish Pensions Agency on benefits are in turn based on identity data at the Swedish Tax Agency.

“A fundamental requirement is that no individual shall be able to appear under several different identities in the agencies’ registers. This is not being fulfilled today,” comments Anders Berg, project leader for the audit.

A particular risk that persists regardless of how well the agencies succeed in ensuring correct identity from the start, is that these identities can be exploited by someone else. The Swedish Social Insurance Agency performs limited checks – and the Swedish Pensions Agency none at all – to ensure that a person applying for a benefit is associated with the specified personal identity number.

There are also shortcomings in the exchange of information and cooperation between the agencies. There is a need for

• The Swedish Police Authority and the Swedish Tax Agency to cooperate better in terms of false and incorrect identities
• The Swedish Police Authority and the Swedish Migration Agency to have better access to identity documents at the Swedish Tax Agency
• The Swedish Tax Agency to have better access to the identity data that forms the basis for the decisions of the Swedish Migration Agency.

“The work needs to be more effective, both in terms of establishing identities and in detecting and remedying erroneously registered identities,” comments Deputy Auditor General Claudia Gardberg Morner.