These parents created a school app. Then the city called the cops

As the controversy unfolded, Öppna Skolplattformen’s popularity continued to grow – including an increase in the number of people involved in its development. Co-founders Landgren and Öbrink say up to 40 people have worked on developing the app. This group of volunteers discovered and crushed bugs, developed a search function and translated the application into different languages. They also raised potential security issues with the official application, even when the city was working against them. The team includes designers, lawyers and developers. “As private citizens, we are highly digitalized,” Landgren said.

As the launch scene in Sweden thrives – Spotify, Klarna and King are based there – its public sector technology is struggling to cope. The latest OECD report on government digitization in 2019 ranks Sweden at the bottom of the 33 countries examined. “When we use these official tools, they stay in the ’90s,” Landgren said. “To bridge this gap, we and many others who have joined us believe that open source is perhaps the best way to start working together.” He argues that civic development can be more effective. from costly and often unsuccessful government IT projects that take years to complete and are obsolete by the time they are completed.

“This shows very clearly some of the ways in which the digitalisation of Sweden has gone wrong,” said Matthias Rubenson, secretary of the Swedish branch of the Pirate Party, who described the problems he had with the Skolplattform. “In general, there is a possibility that the school platform is good. But you need to involve students, and especially teachers, in development from the beginning. There was none of that in the School Platform. ”

Öppna Skolplattformen had to wait for months to be cleared. “We don’t believe anything criminal has been done,” said Asa Sköldberg, head of the preliminary police investigation. Today’s news on August 16th. Data regulator Integritetsskyddsmyndigheten has not launched an investigation into the city’s complaint, a spokesman said.

The police report shared with WIRED by Landgren refers to Certezza’s security review, which was commissioned by the city and completed on 17 February 2021. The review concluded that the open source application did not send any sensitive information to third parties and was not does not pose a threat to consumers. The police report went further in clearing the developers of Öppna Skolplattformen. “All information used by Öppna Skolplattformen is public information that the City of Stockholm has voluntarily disseminated,” it said.

Landgren was traveling at his brother’s wedding in France in early September when he received the phone call. The city changed its position on the Öppna Skolplattformen – and all other applications that seek to do similar things – and decided to allow others to access the data in their systems. To do this, the city entered into an agreement with an external supplier who will be able to create licenses between Öppna Skolplattformen and the city.

“With this solution, the city of Stockholm can ensure that personal data is processed in a correct and secure way, while parents can participate in digital market tools in their daily lives,” said Isabel Smedberg-Palmqvist, a city councilor in Stockholm. statement issued on 9 September. This move is a confirmation of Öppna Skolplattformen’s efforts – the team estimates that hundreds of hours of work have been invested in the application. But the call was also a shock to Landgren. Just days earlier, he claims, Öppna Skolplattformen had been hit again by attempts to block her access to official APIs. After the announcement, the efforts stopped.