Clarification on the Swedish Covert Surveillance Act

Where the identity of the suspect is not known, but his contacts are known, or a third party (such as a website which the suspects visits) is known, one can permit secret data reading of these contacts, or the third party, but only in order to identify the suspect.

Under section 12 of the Act, an authorization can provide for secret entry to premises to plant spyware physically on an information system (e.g. a stationary computer).

The figures, published since 2020, when the Act was introduced, show that the overwhelming purpose for which secret data reading is granted in Sweden is to break a device’s encryption.

My point is, if Mullvad was, can they be even transparent about it? From what I can tell, they can’t be. Ergo, you can’t trust their own blogs / write-ups on the topic.

Section 2 of the Act distinguishes between the following categories of data which can be collected:

communication interception data: data on the content of messages that are transmitted or have been transmitted to or from a telephone number or any other address in an electronic communication network

communication monitoring information: information about messages that are transmitted or have been transmitted in an electronic communication network to or from a telephone number or any other address,

location information: information about the geographical area in which certain electronic communication equipment is or has been

camera surveillance data: data obtained through optical personal surveillance

audio surveillance data: data relating to speech in a private room, conversations between others or negotiations at meetings or other gatherings to which the public does not have access

other stored and real-time data on the device not falling into the above categories.

For notification afterwards on the use of secret investigative measures … in particular where notification would damage ongoing investigations or damage other interests requiring secrecy. There is a list of serious offences (mainly security offences) where notification need not occur.

There is a standing remedy mechanism. Section 3 of the Supervision Act provides that, at the request of an individual, SIN is obliged to check whether he or she has been the subject of secret surveillance … SIN is to inform the complainant that a control has been carried out. However, the standard reply is ”no violation of the law has occurred”.


I expect they’d do it, but I am not gullible to bet my house on it. That said, I don’t see how doing so meets PG’s current minimum criteria on secret logging.

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