Viking Magazine - April 2010 - 38

FOR or
AGAINST
says that too-easy access leads to gratuitous
snooping. It's no different than
" if you said, 'Press here and you can see
your neighbor naked,' I'm sure everybody
would push that button, " he says.
And it's true that many Norwegians
can't resist taking a look at the skattelister,
or tax lists. Even people who
say they're opposed to publishing the
information admit that they fi nd themselves
doing a quick search on line-
checking to see what a friend or family
member makes. The lists can be
searched by name and city of residence,
and are available on dozens of Web
sites in Norway, including those of
Skatteetaten, major newspapers such
as Aftenposten and Dagbladet, and other
media outlets.
Why does the tax authority engage in
what Tybring-Gjedde calls a violation
of privacy rights? The intentions are
honorable, Ove Skåra explains.
Skåra works at Datatilsynet, the
Data Inspectorate, an agency funded
by the state and charged with monitoring
data handling in business and
government to protect citizens' privacy.
The tax records have been published
since 1863, he says. It's meant
to give all Norwegians a way to see
if the tax system works as it should,
and if they and their neighbors are
being treated fairly. Since passage of
Norway's 1970 Offentlighetsloven, or
Open Files Act, Skåra adds, the tax
records-and all government documents
that don't involve national
security-must be accessible to the
public by law.
Access used to mean that tax records
were published on paper, available for
viewing by anyone who traveled to a
regional tax offi ce to see them-something
only those with serious questions
would be likely to do. Now, public
access means that the skattelister are
available to any anonymous searcher
38 V I K I N G A pri l 2010
When surveyors asked 1,002 Norwegians whether tax
records should be accessible to everyone:
2%
weren't sure
20%
didn't care
32%
were for it
46%
were against it
SOURCE: NORWEGIAN TAXPAYERS ASSOCIATION/SYNOVATE
curious enough to spend a moment at
the computer.
Norway's journalists are lobbying
Storting, or parliment, for the open
system to continue. They say full access
to tax records is vital for their watchdog
role. Privacy advocates like TybringGjedde
and Skåra want the system
changed somehow-releasing aggregated
rather than individual records,
disallowing anonymous searches or
putting the information off limits to the
media. They say abuse of tax information
is fueling class conflict. But Skåra
acknowledges that a more closed system
would go against the cultural grain.
" That kind of transparency has always
been important in Norway, " he says.
" We are a very transparent society. And
equal. Equality is important for us. "
Debate or Commerce?
There's plenty of evidence of media
sensationalism and just plain nosiness
surrounding the tax records, say privacy
advocates. First, there are the headlines:
" Norway's Richest Politicians, "
" Anonymous and Rolling in Money. "
And then there's a public opinion
poll: Skattebetalerforeningen, the Norwegian
Taxpayers Association, commissioned
a survey in 2008 to learn
how many people were using the online
tax lists and why. Of the 40 percent
of Norwegians who said they'd looked
someone up, 61 percent said they'd
looked up an immediate family member.
Asked to choose from a list of possible
reasons for searching the tax lists,
by far the most common answer survey
respondents gave (67 percent) was being
nysgjerrig, curious or nosy.
When the 2008 lists came out in
October 2009, so did new iPhone
applications-sold by the newspapers
for just 17 kroner. " All your friends
on Facebook, if you download these
applications, you can have all their tax
Viking Magazine - April 2010

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