[RhysabOweyn]

Swish is only the surface of the dystopia that Sweden is these days. Wait until you find out how Swedish personal numbers (personnummers) work. The government, banks, insurance companies, landlords, etc. can pretty much deny anyone (including Swedish citizens) basic services if they don't have one.

[piperswe]

Isn't that basically how social security numbers are in the US? Paying your taxes, opening a bank account, starting an insurance policy, and applying for an apartment all ask for an SSN. This isn't a Sweden thing, it's just a 21st century thing.

[amandasystems]

In addition they also encode (binary) gender which means they’re terrible for trans people (not to mention nonbinary people more generally) because it means anyone can search databases for trans peope. Just find everyone whose number encodes a gender that does not overlap with their name’s.

You can get it changed, but only after getting a dysphoria diagnosis and a recommendation letter from a doctor and then applying to a specific committee, a process that currently takes more than five years (I don’t know how much more because I’m still waiting).

And then of course it’s an administrative nightmare to get in touch with everyone and tell them you’ve done something that usually is seen as impossible since personnummer are meant to be primary keys in society’s database.

[Freak_NL]

Wow, that's a huge design flaw. Such a number should be opaque (the Dutch BSN is), but Sweden's number just puts the date of birth and gender in the number there for all to see.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identity_number_(Swed...

[7_chars]

Are there Swedish citizens without personal numbers?

Is it the need to identify oneself that you find dystopic?

[amarant]

There are not, GP is either a troll or misinformed.

The difference between the Swedish personnummer and similar system in other countries is basically that the Swedish version functions unusually well.

You can actually get a personnummer without being a citizen.

[RhysabOweyn]

You are misinformed. I personally had to deal with the nightmare of not having a personal number as a Swede born abroad.

[amarant]

I stand corrected, saw your other post about sammordningsnummer, and googled that. It's quite the corner case that I'd never heard of before.

I'll agree that the system is not optimal and could be better in this regard, but it is hardly dystopian. You have about 2 hoops to jump through to get your ID, and after that you'll have full access to one of the most convenient bureaucracies on earth (and that's probably the first time I've used the words convenient and bureaucracy in the same sentence!)

Having lived in a few different countries, and having friends who have migrated from a few others to Sweden, I'm fairly confident the Swedish bureaucracy is ahead of the curve.

If I may ask, where do you live that has a better system? How does it work over there?

[RhysabOweyn]

Yes, there are Swedish citizens without personal numbers. Not only that, but you can only get a personal number if you have been a resident. If you are a Swedish citizen who has never lived in Sweden, you have to move there to get one. Otherwise when you are registered with the tax authority abroad you are only issued a samordningsnummer.