How we handle your personal data when you are registered at Arbetsförmedlingen

When you register with the Public Employment Service, we record certain information about you in our database.

The Public Employment Service is the data controller for the data you provide. The registered data are handled in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (EU 2016/679) and the Act containing supplementary provisions to the EU General Data Protection Regulation (2018:218).

The ordinance and law entail strengthened protection for you as a private individual when government agencies and companies process your personal data.

The Public Employment Service’s processing of personal data is also regulated by the Act (2002:546) to handle personal information in labour market policy activities (AF-PuL) and the Ordinance (2002:623) on the management of personal data in labour market policy programmes (AF-PuF).

Here, you will find information about when the Public Employment Service processes your personal data as well as your rights.

Why we register data about you

The registers help us pair you with available jobs and allow us to provide extra support, for example, work experience placement (praktikplats). Together with us, you decide which information about you will be submitted to employers who have an available job. Following your approval, the employer will be able to see certain information about you. Your personal data may also be used in our test environment.

Data that are registered

  • Which jobs you are seeking
  • Your preferences for working hours and where in the country you would prefer the job to be located
  • Your education and work experience
  • Driving license and any access to a car
  • Name, personal identity number, address, email address and phone number
  • Whether you are employed or unemployed
  • Notes on your case

Employers can see

  • your personal data (name, address, phone number, email address, year of birth, whether you have a driving license and can use your car for work)
  • credentials (education and professional experience)
  • skills (your chosen skills words)

Your data will be removed from our database no later than three years after your case has been closed with the Public Employment Service. Then, in accordance with the law, the data will be sent for archiving, for future research purposes, for example.

How are your personal data protected?

Arbetsförmedlingen ensures that processing of personal data is protected by suitable technological and organisational measures. This means that we take measures to process your personal data confidentially, properly, accessibly, and with good technological safeguards. For example, only authorised individuals have access to your personal data.

Legal processing of personal data

Lawful basis

There must be a lawful basis for Arbetsförmedlingen to be able to process personal data pertaining to you. Lawful bases include processing that is necessary for completing a task of general interest, or if the processing of personal data is required as a step in Arbetsförmedlingen’s exercise of authority. We can only process some personal data if you have submitted consent for doing so. This may be the case if you have provided sensitive information about your health. In other cases, we have the opportunity to process data as an aspect of our exercise of authority; in these cases, it is not necessary for you to consent in order for us to process your personal data.

The purpose of processing

Arbetsförmedlingen collects your data only for specific purposes. When you register at Arbetsförmedlingen, your personal data are processed for the purpose of connecting employers with jobseekers. Your personal data will also be processed in order for unemployment insurance to function as transition insurance. In this regard, your personal data may be forwarded to other government agencies. In addition to these purposes, your data may be processed for archiving purposes of general interest, scientific or historic research purposes, or for statistical purposes.

Sensitive and delicate personal data

Sensitive personal data

Personal data that are sensitive with regard to privacy are called sensitive personal data. Sensitive personal data are personal data that directly or indirectly reveal ethnicity, political views, religious or philosophical beliefs and so on. Sensitive personal data may be processed in a database as they are submitted in a case or are necessary for administration of the case.

Delicate personal data

Personal data about an individual’s social circumstances as well as judgments, conclusions or other evaluative information about an individual are considered delicate personal data. Delicate personal data may be processed in a database only if they are submitted in a case or are necessary for administration of the case. This also applies to personal data pertaining to information about transgressions of the law including criminal offences, judgments in criminal cases, coercive measures or administrative detentions.

Rights of the registered individual

Exercise of your rights according to the GDPR

If you want a register extract showing how the Public Employment Service processes your personal data, use the form Request a register extract. A register extract only includes processing of personal data and not other information in documents about you. If you want documents, use the form on this page:

Access public documents

If you want to use another right pertaining to your personal data, use the form Request correction, completion, erasure, limitation or objection to personal data processing. Do not use this if you believe the administration has been incorrect. This is only for management of personal data. If you have feedback on our administration, use the form on this page:

Feedback on our activities

If you would like to know what information we have about you, then request a register extract. Fill in and submit the form:

Register extract request

If we have registered incorrect information about you, you can have it corrected. Fill in and submit the form:

Request correction, completion, erasure, limitation or objection to personal data processing

Right to correction and completion

If you believe we have registered erroneous information about you, you may contact Arbetsförmedlingen to have it corrected. This also means you have the right to add missing personal data that are relevant to the purpose of the personal data processing. Arbetsförmedlingen will always assess each case individually. Public documents can neither be corrected nor completed under the GDPR.

Right to erasure

If you are registered with us you have the right in some cases to have the personal data about you that we process deleted. This is not applicable in all situations, however; Arbetsförmedlingen conducts an assessment on a case by case basis. Public documents are exempt from the rules on erasure in the GDPR. Personal data must be erased according to the GDPR in the following cases:

  • If the data are no longer required for the purposes for which they were collected
  • If the processing is based on individual consent and the individual has revoked consent
  • If the individual objects to the processing of personal data occurring within the framework of exercise of authority or after a weighing of interests and there are no legitimate reasons that weigh heavier than the individual’s interest
  • If the personal data have been processed illegally
  • If erasure is required to fulfil a legal obligation

Right to limitation of processing

In some cases, you may have the right to request a limitation to the processing of your personal data. Limitation means the data are marked so that in the future, they are only processed for certain specific purposes. The right to limitation is applicable when you consider the data to be incorrect and you have requested a correction. In such cases, you may also request a limitation to the processing of personal data while the accuracy of the data is being assessed.

Right to object

If Arbetsförmedlingen processes your personal data, in some cases you may object to this processing. The right to object is applicable when personal data are processed to perform a task of public interest as a component in the exercise of authority, or in the case of profiling.

If you object to processing, Arbetsförmedlingen will only continue to process the data if there are necessary legitimate reasons for processing the data that weigh heavier than the individual’s interests, rights and freedoms or if the processing is for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

Special rules apply for personal data that are processed for scientific and historic research purposes or statistical purposes.

Right to data portability

If you have submitted personal data, in some cases you have the right to obtain and use your personal data elsewhere, for example in another social media service (right to data portability). Arbetsförmedlingen may be responsible for facilitating this transfer of personal data when technologically feasible. One condition is that Arbetsförmedlingen processes the personal data with the support of your consent or to fulfil an agreement that you have entered. This only applies to personal data that you have submitted yourself. The right to data portability is new to the GDPR.

Automated decision-making, including profiling

Arbetsförmedlingen may use automated decision-making, including profiling. Profiling means every form of automatic processing of personal data when the data are used to assess certain personal properties, in particular to analyse or predict an individual’s work performance, financial situation, health, personal preferences, interests, reliability, behaviour, place of residence or relocations. If this occurs, Arbetsförmedlingen will inform you.

Which personal data may be processed

Arbetsförmedlingen may, in their labour market policy programmes, process certain personal data in specific situations. You can read more about what personal data Arbetsförmedlingen may process in the Ordinance (2002:623) on the management of personal data in labour market policy programmes.

Who can access your personal data?

Your personal data may be provided on the medium for automated processing, that is, it may be given out by email or another transfer via internet. Arbetsförmedlingen has the right to convey some information to employers, the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan), the Swedish Board of Student Finance (Centrala studiestödsnämnden), Swedish Migration Agency (Migrationsverket) and more. Read more about what information the Public Employment Service may disclose in AF-PuF, sections 11 a – 15.

An employer may have direct access to personal data that may be processed, for example name, birthday, address, email address, phone number and other contact and identification information. Furthermore, the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, Swedish Board of Student Finance and the Swedish Migration Agency have direct access to certain information. Read more about this in AF-PuF, sections 16 – 16 a.

Personal data regarding a jobseeker’s telephone number or a contact person’s telephone number or function in the company may not be used as search terms in systems used by the staff of Arbetsförmedlingen .

How long does Arbetsförmedlingen save personal data?

Data pertaining to jobseekers in a labour market database shall be cleared out no more than three years after the end of the year in which the processing of data concluded in a case with Arbetsförmedlingen.

Confidentiality stipulations

When Arbetsförmedlingen processes personal data, we follow the Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act (2009:400). In the operations of Arbetsförmedlingen, the stipulations of chapter 28, sections 11, 12 and 12 a apply. Confidentiality does not prevent us from providing information to our procured suppliers or other government agencies that need it, such as the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, Swedish Board of Student Finance and Sweden’s unemployment insurance funds.