Citizens in Scandinavia routinely access tax-funded public services online – unaware that their personal data is being harvested in the process. In this interview, media scholar Helle Sjøvaag discusses new research revealing how municipal websites across Denmark, Norway, and Sweden use commercial trackers that collect personal data, raising concerns about privacy, transparency, and the integrity of the Nordic welfare model.
Anna Pacholczyk (AP): Scandinavia’s welfare states are among the most digitally advanced in the world. As your recent study emphasises, citizens routinely use municipal websites to access essential, tax-funded public services. Yet these platforms often include commercial third-party trackers that collect sensitive personal data, which is then repurposed for targeted advertising and commercial profiling. You refer to this phenomenon as a “hidden cost”, an invisible form of payment made in personal data rather than money. How does your study conceptualise this hidden cost? What are the broader implications for universalism, the core principle that underpins Scandinavia?
Helle Sjøvaag (HS): Hidden cost implies that there is an additional cost of use that you don’t see upon use – your own data. This data can be used, in turn, in the advertising models by the commercial trackers that operate within the web architecture of these municipal services.
Hidden cost implies that there is an additional cost of use that you don’t see upon use – your own data.
Universalism means equal access to secure, quality service at a fair cost. What we question here is the extent to which this cost is “fair”, given that it is hidden. We therefore object to the presence of services that gain financially from operating within a non-commercial, tax-funded space.
Kristin Clay (KC) : Your analysis of 745 municipal websites across Denmark, Norway, and Sweden reveals widespread use of commercial third-party trackers from companies such as Alphabet and Meta – even on websites dealing with sensitive processes like job applications and health-related services. What patterns did your study identify regarding the types of tracking functions employed on municipal websites, and how have these evolved over the 16-year period covered in your research?
(HS): We see that the use of these services increase over time, and that the dominance of commercial actors, Google and Meta in particular, prevails across the three countries. Web architecture is growing increasingly complex over this period, meaning that websites need more and more external services to run smootly. Google is a provider of many of the services that ensure quality web functionalities. The dependencies on Google as an infrastructure provider is thus growing.
We see that the use of these services increase over time, and that the dominance of commercial actors, Google and Meta in particular, prevails across the three countries.
(AP): Have municipalities continued to integrate such trackers, despite increasing public and regulatory awareness of data privacy concerns? Do they derive any direct benefit?
(HS): The benefit is of course a quality, well-running online service, which is certainly of value to citizens. Their increasing growth is partly due to this service delivery logic. While we see a sharp decline in the use of Google Analytics, particularly in Denmark where public debate about its data collection practices has been widespread, Google still provides a host of other web functions that also collect data that benefit their business model.
(KC): What does it reveal about the shifting boundaries between public and private actors, as well as how this could affect citizens’ trust in state institutions?
(HS): It reveals that the digital infrastructure of public governance is highly reliant on private actors, as are all services operating in the digital domain. While private/public arrangements can work well and certainly contribute value and quality to public service provision, what we object to here is the commercial potential of citizen data acting in citizen capacities that help fuel the advertising models of these companies.
(AP): Your study concludes with a call to ban commercial trackers from municipal websites and replace them with open-source, privacy-focused alternatives. You also emphasise the need for increased transparency and stronger alignment with universalist values in digital governance. What concrete steps do you recommend as both necessary and feasible for realigning municipal digital infrastructures with the principles of the welfare state? Additionally, what areas of future research do you believe are most urgent to better understand the datafication of public sector and how it affects society at large?
(HS): First of all, I think that a heightened awareness of the presence of these data-collecting, commercial services on municipal websites among citizens as well as the public administration will benefit a more transparent digital governance infrastructure in itself. Second, conscientious decision-making regarding third-party services should help to inspire innovation in digital services here at home and contribute to the strength of the digital sectors in Scandinavia.
I also think it is important that transparency regarding digital infrastructure depededencies receives more attention in the processes of digitalisation of the Scandinavian welfare states. We are growing increasinlgy reliant on foreign, commercial services in digital infrastructure provision. The question then becomes at what point does this reliance lead to too much dependency, or even technology capture, weakening the digital sovereignty of digitalised Scandinavian welfare states.
Read the publication Open Access here.
Image: Adobe Stock.