Sweden: VIP bodyguards share private data
Bodyguards working for the Swedish Security Service Säpo have shared the jogging routes of Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and King Carl XVI Gustaf and other prominent figures on the fitness app Strava. Such data could be used to draw conclusions about private addresses and travel activities. The country's press is up in arms.
Some mistakes simply cannot happen
Svenska Dagbladet points to human error:
“Serious questions must now be asked within the Security Service, and people must be held to account. Mistakes of this kind simply cannot happen. But the ludicrous banality of the revelation also provides valuable lessons. Even large institutions make simple mistakes, and the information they handle is only as secure as the weakest link in the chain. This is one of the reasons why giving them more power, more information and more access to documents does not necessarily make us safer. People will never be perfect. This also applies to people with important public responsibilities.”
Unacceptably naive
Aftonbladet sees a fundamental problem:
“Few Swedes can honestly claim to have good digital security. It's easy to use the same password for everything. Most people get away with such carelessness. The problem is that the same naivety and negligence is in play at the top levels of Sweden's leadership. And that puts our country's security at risk. What we need is a cultural paradigm shift. With a more firm understanding of how risks and threats work in the digital society. Anything and everything can be used against you. Sweden needs role models who can show the way. It's a pity that neither the Säpo [Swedish Security Service] nor the government are up to the task.”
Our mobile watchdogs do not serve us
Dagens Nyheter put things in perspective:
“Strava is not the problem, we are. Thirty years after the Internet became omnipresent, we're still naive about its power. In many ways we're even worse off now that the Internet has been taken over by a few mega-corporations controlled by the whims of a handful of owners who are richer than we can comprehend. That is the deeper lesson we need to learn: that the tiny mobile watchdogs we entrust with everything are not putting us first.”