Processing of personal data
Here you can read more about how CSN processes your personal data and the legal basis for this processing. You will also find information about your rights and contact information for our data protection officer.
Table of contents
- Different purposes
- General processing and the principle of access to official documents
- Processing of personal data as it pertains to the payment of student finance, home equipment loans, and driving licence loans
- If we suspect any errors
- How CSN processes personal data in different situations
- Storage and deletion of personal data
- Your rights
- Contact CSN’s Data Protection Officer
- The right to file a complaint with the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection
- Legal basis and provisions
Different purposes
CSN processes personal data for a number of different purposes and in several different parts of our activities. This processing is necessary for us to carry out our assignment to inform, administer, pay out, and manage the repayment of student finance, home equipment loans and driving license loans, and also produce statistics in the field of student finance. We also need to process personal data in our administrative activities, and in our capacity as a government agency.
General processing and the principle of access to official documents
Applications, letters, e-mails, and other messages sent to CSN will be registered as public documents. This also applies to applications and messages sent through My Pages. Public documents may be disclosed in accordance with the principle of public access to official documents. This means that the documents are public, and that the general public and the media are entitled to access their content.
If applications, letters, e-mails, or messages contain information that is covered by confidentiality, we are not permitted to disclose them to the public or the media. However, as a government agency, CSN must disclose information to other authorities according to special provisions on reporting requirements. In such circumstances, we also have to disclose confidential information.
The processing of personal data carried out in order to comply with the Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act, the Archives Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act are supported by the legal basis of public interest in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Processing of personal data as it pertains to the payment of student finance, home equipment loans, and driving licence loans
CSN’s assignment is to administer and pay out student finance, home equipment loan, and driving license loans. We process personal data in order to be able to
- process your case,
- perform follow-ups to ensure that the information on which we base our payments to you is correct,
- manage a potential request for a review or appeal.
If we suspect any errors
If we suspect that an error may have occurred, we need to process your personal data as part of our investigation regarding demand for non-entitled student finance or to report any irregularities within the student finance and driving licence loan activities, if we for example suspect benefit fraud.
Preventing incorrect payments
CSN actively works to prevent incorrect payments by method of data analyses and sample checking. This involves examining a selection of cases deemed to have increased risk of error, based on data analyses in student finance cases. Your data may be processed both for the purpose of achieving effective automatic control and in manual controls.
Processing personal data by automated means helps identify complex data connections that improve risk assessment in a particular case. This may include profiling in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation, which means that predictions are made automatically based on individual circumstances in order to assess the risk of incorrect payments in your student finance case.
Follow-up
Personal data used to conduct follow-ups regarding our processing and to develop our activities in order to ensure that it remains as legally secure, efficient, and simple as possible. We might also use it in order to test our information system and conduct follow-ups to ensure that our employees do not abuse their authorisations.
How CSN processes personal data in different situations
Click the headings below to learn more about what personal data we process in different situations and how this personal data is managed.
Storage and deletion of personal data
The personal data processed by CSN are often considered public documents. The general principle is that government agencies should store public documents. Nevertheless, some personal data shall or may be deleted.
There are specific rules that impose limitations on how personal data may be used then processing a case. If you have taken out a loan with us, we will use your personal data for case-processing purposes after it has been two years since you paid off your loan or after the debt has been settled in some other way. If you have only been receiving grants, we will not use your personal data for case-processing purposes after it has been three years since we last paid out student finance to you or rejected your application.
Following a decision made by the National Archives, CSN stores personal data relating to student finance for archival purposes out of public interest or historical research purposes, statistical purposes, or accounting purposes. The personal data stored pursuant to the decision by the National Archives is kept in a special system with limited access.
If you have applied for a vacancy with us, CSN processes your application documents pursuant to the regulations issued by the National Archives. This means that CSN deletes your application documents and its associated personal data if you have not been offered a position no later than two years after the employment decision has gained legal force. However, if you are employed by CSN or have appealed an employment decision, CSN will store your application documents.
Your rights
When CSN processes your personal data, you have the following rights:
- You can request information about what personal data of yours is being processed. This is known as a register extract (more information below).
- You can request that we rectify or delete your personal data if you believe that they are inaccurate or misleading (more information below).
- You can request that we restrict our processing of your personal data or object to us processing your personal data (more information below).
- You can request that your personal data be relocated. This is known as data portability. In order for this right to be exercised, the personal data must be processed with consent or due to an agreement.
- You can withdraw previously given consent to us processing your personal data.
Contact CSN’s Data Protection Officer
If you have any questions or comments regarding how we process personal data, please contact CSN’s Data Protection Officer. You can contact the Data Protection Officer via email, post, or telephone.
Address
CSN
851 82 Sundsvall
(label the envelope: To data protection officer)
Telephone
+46 (0)60-18 60 00 (say that you wish to speak to the data protection officer)
The right to file a complaint with the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection
The Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection is a supervisory authority for the processing of personal data. This means that they monitor how other authorities process personal data, checking to ensure that this is done in the correct manner.
If you have comments about or are dissatisfied with how CSN processes your personal data, please contact the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection.
More information regarding your rights at the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection website
Legal basis and provisions
Personal data processing is supported by the legal basis of public interest and/or the exercise of official authority in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The rules for how we may process your personal data are set out in the following laws and regulations, among others:
- The Swedish Student Finance Act (1999:1395)
- The Swedish Student Finance Ordinance (2000:655)
- The Swedish Student Finance Data Act (2009:287)
- The Swedish Student Finance Data Ordinance (2009:321)
- Regulation (1990:1361) regarding loans for home equipment for refugees and certain other foreigners
- Act (2017:527) regarding education entry grants
- Act (2022:856) regarding student finance for transition and retraining
- Ordinance (2018:1118) regarding driver’s license loans
- Ordinance (1997:1158) regarding government grants for sign-language education for certain parents
- Ordinance (1995:667) regarding grants to certain disabled upper-secondary school pupils
- Official Statistics Act (2001:99)
- Official Statistics Ordinance (2001:100)
- The General Data Protection Regulation: Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and 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 (2018:218) containing supplementary provisions to the EU General Data Protection Regulation