Paedophile site reported for privacy violations

A website featuring personal information about Swedes convicted of sex crimes involving children has been reported to the police by Sweden's Data Inspection Board (Datainspektionen – DI).

• Sex offender website reported to police (18 Mar 09)
• Police to investigate Swedish sex offender website (17 Feb 09)
• Criminal gang takes over sex offender website (6 Jan 09)

The filing marks the third police report within the last year filed by Swedish data protection officials about websites containing personal information about convicted sex offenders.

“It’s a worrying development that more sites of this type are cropping up which clearly breach the the date protection act,” DI head Göran Gräslund said in a statement.

By publishing the names, addresses, and personal identity numbers (personnummer) of people convicted of sex crimes involving children, the website, svenskapedofiler.se (‘Swedish paedophiles’), violates Sweden’s Personal Data Act (Personuppgiftslagen - PuL), according to the agency's complaint.

“When sites like this expose people, it not only affects those who are singled out, but also affect their families and relatives,” said Gräslund.

Additional information published on the site includes details about the sex offenders’ crimes, as well as their case numbers. The site also allows users to locate offenders on a map of Sweden.

In addition to publishing personal data, the site must also be published in Sweden or rely on equipment placed in Sweden in order to fall under the country's data protection laws.

While svenskapedofiler.se contains no information about who operates the site, Gräslund told the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper that DI has evidence indicating that the site's operators have IP-addresses registered in Sweden.

Back in March 2009, DI filed a similar complaint against kriminellt.com, a website which posts information about sex offenders run by the Original Gangsters criminal gang.

The complaint came just one month after the agency reported a similar site, sexbrott.com (previously known as sexoffender.nu), which also published the names, personal identity numbers, addresses, convictions details and sentences of Swedish sex offenders.

Gräslund told SvD that a police investigation into one of the sites was abandoned, but that the second investigation is ongoing.

While sexbrott.com is no longer operational, kriminellt.com remains up and running.