Swedish interest in ethics is now high. There are at least three reasons.

1. The Stock-Market Exchange and Private Enterprise. In the early 80's, the Swedish Stock Market Exchange increased enormously in importance as more people entered the market. The working of the Exchange depends on the equal availability of relevant information to all actors. The legal system in Sweden has regulations concerning these matters but, by and large, enforcement depends on the good will of those involved. As an independent agency, the Exchange does not want the State to interfere in its workings. So, there has been rather heavy emphasis on ethics in order to foster self-regulation. The main aim is to stop the abuse of insider knowledge and the giving of favors to a small group of shareholders.

During the 80's, the employers association was active in promoting interest in ethics-including environmental issues and the responsibility of industrial corporations. Much of this development can also be seen as defensive, the consequence of pressure from political and environmental groups. Still, the idea that ethics is important has gained ground and has become solidly entrenched in Swedish social, political, and economic life. As interest in politics declined during the 80's, many questions that in the 60's and 70's would have been treated as "political" are now "ethical:'

2. Engineering Ethics and the Bofors Scandal. The Bofors Corporation is an arms manufacturer, one of Sweden's largest. Traditionally, Sweden has had strong armed forces. Neutral and non-aligned, it has considered an independent Swedish capability to produce weapons and ammunition important. Even sq there is a limit to how much taxpayers are willing to pay for Swedish-made weapons. To afford the production of the small series of advanced weapons bought by the Swedish military-which cost the same to develop as big series-there is a national policy which allows Bofors (and others) to sell weapons to other countries. There are, however, strict regulations as to which countries may purchase Swedish weapons. For any export, Bofors needs permission from a government agency. Export is only allowed-at least in principle-to countries where the weapons will not be used. (If a receiver country becomes involved in a war, Sweden is supposed to stop selling it weapons.)

During the early 80's, the peace and anti-nuclear arms movement grew even among the engineers. One engineer, Ingvar Bratt, who worked in Bofors, was increasingly worried about his own role in arms manufacture. By accident, he discovered that Bofors was breaking the law. Weapons were being sold to "allowed countries" with the knowledge that they would then be shipped to forbidden countries. Someone at Bofors forged the necessary papers saying the weapons would stay in the allowed country.

Bratt first broke the news to the press anonymously. But, after some time, he came out openly and the scandal became much more serious. The scandal has now been passing through the legal machinery for some time. Everyone blames someone else. The (former) management of Bofors blame the government. They were, they say, fully informed. The government claims that they did not know.

For a time, Bratt was a hated man in the town of Karlskoga, where Bofors is situated, but a hero in the rest of Sweden. He got little support from his local trade union. (In Sweden nearly everyone is a member of a trade union.) The union treated him as disloyal to the employer. That treatment led to a debate in the Swedish trade union of civil engineers and eventually to a new code of engineering ethics. The new code stresses the responsibility of engineers far environmental and health effects of the production in which they participate. There is less emphasis on loyalty to the employer, the main focus of the old code. Bran has been rehabilitated, even among his former colleagues.

Another outcome of the scandal was that Nobel Industries, the owner of Bofors, sacked the old management and arranged for courses in ethics to be taken by everyone employed there.

3. Computers, Privacy, and Big Brother. Sweden has a very accurate system of national statistics managed by Statistics Sweden. It covers all aspects of life. Some statistical tabulations date back to the 17th century and are among the oldest in the world. Every inhabitant in Sweden, whether a citizen or a permanent resident, has a unique personal identification number used in all government and local databases. Whenever you deal with the authorities, you must refer to your number. Since all statistics generated by Statistics Sweden make use of this number, all existing databases containing personal information could easily be matched, giving a relatively detailed profile of almost everyone in Sweden.

Sweden has a liberal freedom of information act. Except for a few classified items such as health status, militarily sensitive information, and so on, all government and local archives are open to anybody. You can go to whatever agency you want and demand to see the information they have. You can, for example, find out a great deal about your neighbors. At first, there was some uncertainty whether the freedom of information act applied to databases; the present ruling is that it does.

In the early 70's, Statistics Sweden proposed to use the ordinary census (one every fifth year) to collect a lot of data for social planning. When people got the questionnaires they were upset. Some of the questions they were legally obliged to answer were rather personal (for example: what did you do during a certain week in November?).

The combination of the duty to answer all questions, the possibility of data-matching, and the ambition of Statistics Sweden to use the collected data in planning caused heated public discussion. One outcome was the 1973 Data Act, the first in the world regulating the use of computerized personal information. The main aim of the Data Act is to prevent "undue infringements upon the integrity of registered persons." Regulation of permitted databanks was instituted. Anyone to be registered has to give "informed consent." Matching between existing databases is forbidden. The Act also granted everyone the right, once a year, to request and obtain a printout (free of cost) of all items about him or her in a particular databank. These regulations apply equally to government, local, and private databases. (The Swedish freedom of information act does not apply to private sources.) Unfortunately, characterizing what infringement of personal integrity is "undue" turned out to be difficult.

Discussion of the dangers of computerization has triggered a keen interest in privacy and related questions about personal integrity. Some of this interest has combined with concern about the intrusiveness of the welfare state. In some instances, the Data Inspection Board, the agency created to oversee the workings of the Data Act, has been a veritable battlefield between its social democratic members and their political adversaries. (The Board had, as was usually the case at that time, membership including both persons appointed by the government and persons representing various interest groups.)

One consequence of the interest the battles at the Data Inspection Board generated was that last July an independent Center for Research Ethics was established under the auspices of Goteborg's Royal Society of Arts and Sciences (KV VS), an institution incorporated in the late 18th century. The new center is to be a forum to further interest and discussion of ethical problems in research. It will do research in selected topics as well as arrange public seminars and symposia.

I am its first director. Among our plans is a summer school on research ethics to be held yearly in the vicinity of Goteborg, probably beginning the first week of June 1991. The summer school is intended for graduate students and young scientists. We hope to have an internationally balanced body of participants. Connected with the summer school, there will be an international seminar on research ethics. Further information can be obtained from Center for Research Ethics, c/o Chalmers University of Technology, 5-412 96 Goteborg, Sweden, Tel. 46-31-723148, Fax 46-31-723150.