Sweden's Government Offices block ChatGPT and Claude for staff

A Swedish ministry's staff will have Microsoft Copilot as their only AI tool on Monday. Sveriges Radio reported on Thursday that the Government Offices, Regeringskansliet, will block ChatGPT and Claude from staff computers from Monday. The block came after a review of which AI services the ministry has approved. The approved tool is Microsoft's Copilot.

What the ministry says

Sveriges Radio quotes Mikael Wettercrantz, the ministry's digitalisation director. He wrote in a note on the ministry's intranet about use of AI services without a contract. He said it can have "consequences for our information security". He declined an interview with Sveriges Radio's news programme Ekot.

The ministry's press office told Sveriges Radio that it has raised the security settings on Copilot. The change followed the same review. The press office would not say which settings changed. It said that was a security matter.

Some staff will keep access to ChatGPT and Claude through a separate platform the ministry built in-house. Access to Deepseek was already blocked at the ministry.

The pattern across Swedish state bodies

Sveriges Radio says the Government Offices is one of several. The Swedish Tax Agency, Skatteverket, has introduced a similar block. The National Board of Institutional Care, Statens institutionsstyrelse, has one too. The Swedish Enforcement Authority, Kronofogden, is preparing a decision on the same question.

The report cites the Swedish Transport Administration, Trafikverket. Its internal audit earlier this year found "widespread and risky use" of about ten different AI services. Sveriges Radio quotes the audit: "We have seen several examples of problematic use of open AI services. The examples cover both the sensitivity of the data entered and how the AI-generated answers were handled."

The news programme Ekot credits the report to Mikael Grill Pettersson. Reveneau fetched the article through the Internet Archive on 23 October, because Sveriges Radio's website refuses automated requests.

A ministry IT department has to approve what runs on a staff laptop. The first question for them is whether the vendor has signed a data processing contract with a European body. A product with no written answer there cannot be approved. The model behind it does not matter at that step. Microsoft has approved paths for this. That is why Copilot is the one that stayed.

A team selling an AI product to a large employer should read the Sveriges Radio report as a list. The buyer there is the information security officer. The end user comes later. Price and features matter after the data contract is signed.

Source

Sveriges Radio, Ekot. "Regeringskansliet spärrar AI-tjänsterna Chat GPT och Claude". By Mikael Grill Pettersson. Discussion on Hacker News.