Number blunder makes man 'father' of two
A 29-year-old old Swedish man recently came home from the maternity ward with his newborn daughter and was surprised to learn that he was the father of not one, but two, children, according to records with Swedish authorities.
“I had one child extra registered as mine. This seems very mysterious, I thought,” said Tobias Wallin to the Expressen newspaper.
Despite quickly informing the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan) of their mistake, nothing happened. According to Wallin, he was simply pushed around from one administrator to the next.
“None of them had any clue about what was in their data,” he said.
The last straw came when the Social Insurance Agency sent him home a letter informing him that he’d applied for paternity pay for someone else’s child.
“I reported the agency to the Data Inspection Board (Datainspektionen), because they have problems handling sensitive information,” he said.
The Data Inspection Board finally realized that an administrator had accidentally written Tobias Wallin’s personal identity number (personnummer) instead of the real father’s.
The data privacy agency is critical of the Social Insurance Agency’s lax handling of their own mistake, which ought to have been corrected much quicker, according to Expressen.
The mistake has now been righted, and Wallin no longer has any extra children registered as his own, only his own daughter.
“It’s been a strange situation,” he concluded.
Comments
See Also
“I had one child extra registered as mine. This seems very mysterious, I thought,” said Tobias Wallin to the Expressen newspaper.
Despite quickly informing the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan) of their mistake, nothing happened. According to Wallin, he was simply pushed around from one administrator to the next.
“None of them had any clue about what was in their data,” he said.
The last straw came when the Social Insurance Agency sent him home a letter informing him that he’d applied for paternity pay for someone else’s child.
“I reported the agency to the Data Inspection Board (Datainspektionen), because they have problems handling sensitive information,” he said.
The Data Inspection Board finally realized that an administrator had accidentally written Tobias Wallin’s personal identity number (personnummer) instead of the real father’s.
The data privacy agency is critical of the Social Insurance Agency’s lax handling of their own mistake, which ought to have been corrected much quicker, according to Expressen.
The mistake has now been righted, and Wallin no longer has any extra children registered as his own, only his own daughter.
“It’s been a strange situation,” he concluded.
Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.
Please log in here to leave a comment.