| Abstract: | Swedish public law has incorporated a general rule of public access to documents, and to information in the wider sense, since
the Freedom of the Press Act of 1766. On the Community level, the relationship between Regulation (EC) 45/2001 on data protection
and Regulation (EC) 1049/2001 on public access to documents exemplifies the tension between the public's interest in scrutinising
the administration carried on in its name, and the integrity of the individual. However, a similar tension exists between
Sweden's Personal Data Act of 1998, implementing Directive 95/46, and the Freedom of the Press Act. A misuse model of data
protection law, by seeking to concentrate on serious rather than technical infringements of privacy, might serve to ease the
tension. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and are not attributable to any Community institution.
This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date. |
