The Director-General receives TT in a classroom-like room with lime-green chairs at the headquarters in Gävle. The interview must be held outside the security perimeter for security reasons, explains the press officer.
The security of the National Land Survey has been scrutinized since Expressen revealed that confidential information was openly available in the National Land Survey's archives and that customer service had handed out documents without secrecy checks. This despite Ås Sivborg being warned about the situation several times since 2018.
It wasn't until May that the services were shut down. Despite criticism pouring over the Director-General and the questions raised about what was actually communicated to the board and government, she stands by her decision that it was a correct assessment.
The National Land Survey has a mission to make our information available to society because it has such great significance in very many processes, says Ås Sivborg.
Closing the services without being certain that confidential information was present was not an alternative, considering the consequences it would have had for society.
It would also have been wrong
Resigning is not an option.
If there is trust in me or not, that's something you'll have to ask the government about. But I feel that I have strong support from employees in the organization.
Called to Interrogation
Since the investigation, the Director-General has been questioned in both the Civil Affairs and Defense Committees. She has also had two meetings with the Minister of Infrastructure. After all the meetings, participants have said that several questions remain unanswered and that the picture of what happened differs.
On Thursday, the Chairman of the Defense Committee, Peter Hultqvist (S), tells Expressen that she will be called to a new interrogation.
One example is that, according to Expressen, which refers to both documents and records from the agency, it has been proven that confidential information has leaked.
According to Ås Sivborg, documents with defense secrecy have never been available for disclosure. She takes as an example buildings that are now classified as secret after being purchased for the defense forces, but were not previously secret.
Analyses have shown that the documents were not disclosed after it was established that they contained defense secrecy.
Another example is that Ås Sivborg said she deliberately withheld information from the Government Offices for strategic reasons, according to service notes from the National Land Survey's chief lawyer and security protection chief.
I didn't say that, says the Director-General.
My view is that the notes do not reflect the situation. They are also taken out of context.
In what way?
There were long meetings with many participants. We talked about different aspects and different perspectives.
Could Not Prevent
Since May, when the board, after an extraordinary meeting, urgently shut down the archive service, the National Land Survey has been forced to hire staff to manually handle requests for documents, which has led to delays and significant consequences for municipalities and the construction sector.
Is there anything that could have been done beforehand to prevent this shutdown?
I would say that there isn't.
