Sweden Bans Government Officials from Using ChatGPT and Claude Services

The Swedish government and several state agencies have instituted new restrictions to bolster information security. Public sector employees are now formally prohibited from using the web browser versions of OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude on work computers.

The ban applies to the government offices, the Swedish Tax Agency, and the National Board of Institutional Care. The move follows an audit at the Swedish Transport Agency, which revealed that inputting confidential information without dedicated data protection agreements creates severe risks of data leaks and unauthorized retention for AI model training.

Mikael Wetterkranz, Chief Digital Officer at the Swedish Government Offices, highlighted that unmonitored "shadow IT" platforms pose a major threat to organizational cybersecurity.

In response, civil servants have been directed toward Microsoft Copilot, which meets official security standards. Access to ChatGPT and Claude will now be restricted to a select group of specialists operating strictly through a custom AI assistant platform developed by the Swedish authorities.