After the spy revelation - now authorities must tighten their controls

The Land Survey is one of the authorities that sees the incident with the two brothers accused of spying as a wake-up call.

Security manager Peter Wengrud states that they have shortcomings, not least in their work with background checks of personnel. 

- This must be changed at once.

It is above all a lack of the small controls, which is why we now go in and check grades and certificates, he says.

"Flaws in all areas"

Security protection is about protecting the information and activities that are of importance to Sweden's security and includes both information security, physical security and personnel security.

This is clearly regulated in the legislation, but according to the Security Police, which supervises the security protection of several authorities, there are still shortcomings in the implementation in several places. 

- We see shortcomings in all areas and the most serious are in the fundamental parts, that it is difficult to identify which parts of one's own operations are of importance to Sweden's security, says David Hughes who is a security protection expert at the Security Police.

Time and cost issue

However, Hughes does not want to comment on Säpo's own possible mistakes in the case of the two brothers accused of spying.

- I think that authorities are under such pressure to be efficient that this has certainly taken a backseat, says Fredrik Bynander, associate professor and head of the center for total defense and societal security at the Norwegian Defense University.   

- You have to deliver quick results and it has to be cheap, and then security issues have come second.

Another problem, which several of those SVT has spoken to mention, is the lack of competence in the security field in general. 

- It depends on several things.

Partly because there is not a pronounced professional body that is large enough.

But it's also because all the expertise we need in law, finance and procurement is not niched to take care of these issues, says Fredrik Bynander at the Norwegian Defense Academy. 

The trial against the suspected spy brothers begins this week.