As an American-Brit who has been living in Sweden for a couple of years, I've always found it interesting that pretty much everyone I know here can be found at their home address simply by googling their name and clicking on hitta.se. When I show this to my British or American friends, they're always shocked, and I find myself explaining that "Swedes have a very different, more trusting, relationship with their government than Brits or Americans."
Personally, I've never had a problem arise from this, and neither has anyone I know here, but I've been here less than for two years. I love it here and I can see myself living here for the rest of my life (that is, if you'll have me! Soon time to renew my visa!)
But I find myself wondering: Has anyone here, or anyone you know, ever had a problem arise from their address being listed publicly? Strange people turning up at your door, weird post or packages, or something worse?
Det här inlägget arkiverades automatiskt av Leddit-botten. Vill du diskutera tråden? Joina vår Lemmy-gemenskap på feddit.nu!
The original was posted on /r/sweden by /u/adjectivenounnr at 2023-07-06 07:00:45+00:00.
zlahhan at 2023-07-06 10:08:35+00:00 ID:
jqvdex0The criminal record thing is annoying as hell to me lol. Got a strafföreläggande a couple years back over an accident, and ever since Lexbase has been the very top result for anyone googling my name. This has resulted in me getting turned down from a LOT of jobs, and I'm lucky to even have one right now, let alone as good as I have it. Did take me 300 applications and two years of unemployment though.
I have nothing against being on there, I'd just seriously appreciate it not basically saying "CRIMINAL" as soon as you try to look me up on google, especially when said crime was me accidentally stepping on something on public transport. Personally I think they can fuck off but I do of course see the benefit in being able to know if someone you're seeing or know about has been convicted of something crazy.
geon at 2023-07-06 15:17:11+00:00 ID:
jqwdmezI applied for 200 jobs in the last recession, and I have no criminal record. I’m not convinced it made any difference for you.
CaptainSeabo at 2023-07-06 10:24:56+00:00 ID:
jqvepcfYou can always try to report a search result on Google, and claim you don’t want it to appear when searching for that specific thing. It worked for me with a few old images at least.
zlahhan at 2023-07-06 10:46:05+00:00 ID:
jqvggzcTried for years to no avail sadly. At its worst it nearly made me concider reaching out to old classmates about getting into selling drugs after about 200 job applications, over less than 500 SEK worth of damage I never had to pay for absolutely wrecking my career life as a young adult.
IMO it's a bit fucked up but it also speaks for more than just the existence of sites like that. They could look me up if they wanted to, but of course the chance of still getting employed is a hell of a lot smaller when you can just immediately filter out anyone whos names pop up there before the first interview.
chlomor at 2023-07-06 12:44:38+00:00 ID:
jqvsi2yAren’t such sites now covered by the GDPR?
EDIT: Nope, they’re not.
shitsu13master at 2023-07-06 14:39:30+00:00 ID:
jqw7zdkWhen someone asks during and interview you can explain to them what happened, surely. Unless it’s not as innocent as you make it sound.
zlahhan at 2023-07-06 14:58:23+00:00 ID:
jqwatobWell yeah, it's getting to the first interview that's the issue and that's stated in my comment lol. They get the application, look the name up, see Lexbase, toss in bin.
I got a few interviews where I didn't get the job, but they always asked about it and I always kept the paper surrounding the decision from the myndighet at hand for that. That was never the problem and it's totally fair that I didn't get the job in those cases. It's not that I'm simply in the system either, it's that it's basically the only piece of information about me on the web that isn't eniro and the like, and also the top result on google for years.