Senior AF chief reported to prosecutor for suspected crime regarding criticized service for asylum seekers

The Jobskills web service was created on the initiative of Labor Minister Ylva Johansson (S). The service, which has cost more than 100 million, will help asylum seekers to identify their skills and reach future employers. But SVT showed last year that Jobskills could be used for refugee espionage, and that the Employment Service, despite internal warnings and decisions, did not make an in-depth investigation of whether the service complied with the law.

Such an investigation was made only after SVT's reports, and resulted in the service being lost substantially. Nowadays, an asylum seeker meets with explicit warnings on the site, among other things, is advised not to register if there is a risk of persecution or reprisals in the home country.

Earlier this year, the Swedish Employment Service received a notification in its internal whistleblower system, which claimed that the responsible manager Erik Sandström violated the law when he gave employers access to the information in Jobskills.

The authority had a law firm investigate the charges, and that investigation recently found that Jobskills at the time of the breach of the law on public and confidentiality. This is because it was not considered whether the individual asylum seekers could be exposed to any risks when their information was disclosed to employers.

However, it was unclear whether Erik Sandström bore any personal responsibility, and therefore the matter was reported to the State Accountability Board, which has now made its decision.

The Board concludes that Sandström "may in any case be regarded as reasonably suspected of having committed a crime in his employment" against the duty of professional secrecy or alternative service. He is therefore reported to the Prosecutor's Office, which means that it is now up to a prosecutor to decide on a prosecution.

Employment Director of Communications Mikael Hvinlund states in a comment that "it is important that it is clarified how strict the confidentiality legislation is in this case", and that the authority is now awaiting the prosecutor's assessment.

Erik Sandström is usually the director of the AF Direkt business area, responsible for a large part of the Swedish Employment Agency's digital initiatives. He recently left that role for a mission in the "Strategic Change Staff" which, according to the authority's press department, "leads the work on preparing for the reform" of the Employment Service.