Processing of personal data

Swedish Customs processes personal data for various purposes within its activities. For example, we may need to collect personal data in connection with law enforcement or when processing customs duties and taxes. If you have submitted personal data to Swedish Customs, you have the right to know what personal data has been collected.

What constitutes personal data?

Personal data is any information that can be directly or indirectly attributed to a living natural person. This means that if a registered piece of information directly or indirectly shows who the information concerns, it is personal data. Examples of personal data are name, address and social security number, but also a picture or a case number can be personal data. In some cases, information about legal persons is also considered personal data.

What does processing personal data entail?

In principle, processing of personal data means anything that can be done with the data, such as collecting, reading, recording, storing, sharing, collating or printing the data. There are several laws and regulations with rules on how personal data can be processed. The purpose of these rules is to protect people from having their privacy violated when their personal data is processed.

Controller responsibility

Swedish Customs is the controller for all processing of personal data carried out within the framework of its activities.

Why does Swedish Customs collect personal data?

Swedish Customs processes personal data for various purposes within its activities. For the processing of personal data to be authorised, there must always be a legal basis.

The legal bases set out in the GDPR include when processing:

• Is based on the consent of the data subject.
• Is necessary for the performance of a contract with the data subject.
• Fulfils a legal obligation.
• Fulfils a task carried out in the public interest.
• Is necessary for the exercise of official authority.
• Is conducted to protect fundamental interests.

The processing of personal data must be limited to a specific purpose. Swedish Customs may process personal data even if the data subject has not given their consent. This occurs when it is necessary for Swedish Customs to fulfil its duties as an authority.

Processing of personal data by Swedish Customs in its fiscal activities

Swedish Customs may process personal data for, among other things, the determination, accounting, payment and repayment of customs duties, other taxes and fees, monitoring, auditing and other analysis or control activities, fulfilment of an obligation arising from an international commitment to which Sweden is bound, and for supervision, control, follow-up and planning of activities.

Data may also be processed for other purposes, provided that the data is not processed in a way that is incompatible with the purpose for which the data was collected. This processing of personal data is specifically regulated in Act (2001:185) on the processing of data in the activities of Swedish Customs.

Processing of personal data by Swedish Customs in its law enforcement activities

Swedish Customs also processes personal data as part of its law enforcement activities.
The law enforcement department of Swedish Customs may process personal data in order to prevent, deter or detect criminal activities, investigate or prosecute criminal offences, or fulfil certain obligations arising from certain international commitments. This processing of personal data is specifically regulated in the Customs Offences Data Act (2018:1694) and the Criminal Data Act (2018:1177).

Other processing of personal data by Swedish Customs

Swedish Customs processes personal data in its administrative activities. Personal data is processed in connection with, for example, recruitment and administration of personnel, payroll administration and other financial administration.

Swedish Customs also processes personal data when handling cases that are not directly related to the Swedish Customs's areas of activity, for example when examining the disclosure of public documents and when Swedish Customs submits opinions to the Parliamentary Ombudsman and the Chancellor of Justice.

In these cases, the processing of personal data is regulated by the Data Protection Regulation.

Your rights

Right to information and the right to access your data via register extracts

You have a fundamental right to know what personal data concerning you Swedish Customs processes and on what legal basis it is processed. This also means that you have the right to receive clear information about the processing when we collect and process your personal data.

You will receive this information through a register extract, which also contains some more detailed information about the processing. The right to request a register extract is regulated by Article 15 of the Data Protection Regulation and Chapter 4, Section 3 of the Data Protection Act. In certain activities of Swedish Customs, it may be prevented by law from disclosing information to you.

You can contact Swedish Customs and request access to your data (register extract). You can get this information free of charge. To request an extract from the register, you can send a letter or an email to Swedish Customs with the heading "Request for register extract". Contact details for Swedish Customs can be found below.

Right to rectification and completion

Swedish Customs is responsible for ensuring that the data we process about you is correct and up-to-date. If you discover that a piece of information is incorrect or incomplete, you can request that the information be corrected or completed without undue delay.

If the data is incorrect, you can contact Swedish Customs and request that they correct the incorrect data. This also means that you have the right to supplement any missing personal data that is important for the purpose of processing the personal data.

Erasure

You have the right to request that we delete your personal data where the information about you is no longer necessary for the purpose for which it was collected. However, Swedish Customs may be bound by legal obligations that prevent us from deleting information about you. In these cases, the information that Customs is obliged to retain will be blocked so that it cannot be used for purposes other than fulfilling those legal obligations. If you consider that your personal data is not processed in accordance with the applicable data protection rules, you also have the right to request that the data be deleted. However, due to the legislation on archiving, Swedish Customs has very limited possibilities to delete data in public documents.

Restriction

You can also request a restriction. You have the right to request the restriction of the processing of your personal data. Restriction means that the data is marked so that it can only be processed for certain limited purposes in the future. The right to restriction applies, among other things, when you consider the data to be inaccurate and have requested rectification. In such cases, you can also request that the processing of the data be restricted while Swedish Customs investigates whether the data is correct or not. You can also request restriction of processing or object to processing.

Objection to processing

In some cases, you have the right to object to the processing of your personal data. The right to object is limited and does, for example, not apply to Swedish Customs’ core activities.
Find out more on the website of the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection (IMY).

Contact information

• Swedish Customs’ Data Protection Officer (DPO): dataskyddsombud@tullverket.se
• Tullverket: Contact us

The right to file a complaint with the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection (IMY)

You also have the right to file a complaint with the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection if you believe that Swedish Customs is processing your personal data unlawfully. Find out how to file a complaint on the website of the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection.

Public documents

Everything you send to Swedish Customs becomes a public document and the public can request access to it. If someone requests the information, a confidentiality assessment is made to assess whether the information should be confidential or not. Swedish Customs then decides whether the information can be disclosed, in whole or in part. When tips are received by the Swedish Customs, they are often processed by the Intelligence Unit, and much of this information is subject to confidentiality.

Swedish Customs will not pass on your data to third parties for commercial purposes.

The principle of public access to official documents and the obligation to provide information

Swedish Customs will not pass on your data to third parties for commercial purposes. However, upon request, Swedish Customs is obliged to disclose any received document, which may entail the disclosure of personal data. If the information in the document is secret under the Secrecy Act, it may not be disclosed by Swedish Customs.

You may receive a reply by regular mail

Sometimes you will receive a reply to your e-mail by regular mail. This is because there are laws that prevent us from sending certain information electronically. These laws are there to protect your privacy and the privacy of others.

Applicable legislation

General provisions on the processing of personal data are contained in Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation) Act with supplementary provisions to the General Data Protection Regulation (2018:218).

In addition, there are special regulations for Swedish Customs in the form of the Act (2001:185) on the processing of data in the activities of Swedish Customs.

As regards the Swedish Customs' law enforcement activities, there are special regulations in:

• The Criminal Data Act (2012:1177)
• The Customs Offences Data Act (2012:1694).

Cookies on Swedish Customs’ website

Find out more about how personal data is processed by cookies on tullverket.se:

Cookies on tullverket.se