The daily mistakes of the courts that make secret addresses public

In November 2020, the judicial ombudsman (JO) criticized a judge in the Falu district court who failed to write a decision on confidentiality in a judgment. One party in the case had protected his name and address – and was exposed to violence.

The mistake meant that an attachment – with name, social security number and a box address in the woman’s home municipality – became public in the legal sense.

The case in Falun has since then stood as a reference when the JO on a handful of occasions directed similar criticism, and stressed the importance of judges not being careless with confidentiality decisions.

– The problem is that the data will then become public and this can have far-reaching consequences, says Stefan Nyman, head of agency at JO.

SVT has met “Kristin” – her secret address was sent to her ex-husband

In order to get its own picture of how extensive the problem is, SVT did a random sample. For two weeks in November 2024, we looked at judgments from the country’s courts.

We found 15 judgments and final decisions with the same error.

So it’s about an error every day on average – where the names and addresses of crime victims and people who have protected personal data lack a confidentiality decision.

The courts can correct the error before anyone has time to take part in the judgment, but then the court must be alerted to the fact that the error was committed.

– Given that it can have such serious consequences, it is important that these errors are as few as possible, says the judge and privacy expert Peder Liljeqvist.

Hear him explain in the clip below:

After the JO criticism in 2020, the Norwegian Judicial Agency was warned that their computer system could contribute to this type of mistake.

Only in the fall of 2024 was a change made to the system, which allows the judge to opt out of attachments with confidential information in certain cases.

– There are other measures that we have prioritized higher, says Henrik Ardhede, head of the Swedish Courts Agency’s unit for digital case and case management.

The new system lacks a confidentiality warning

In 2022, the Norwegian Courts Administration also launched a supplementary computer system that is used to write judgments in criminal cases. JO remarked earlier this year that it seems that the number of mistakes with confidentiality regulations has increased with the new system.

It is technical possible to create a function that warns judges who fail to print the confidentiality clause in the new system – hear the Swedish Courts Administration answer why it is not yet in place in the clip below.