A discontinued preliminary investigation into sexual harassment has sparked strong reactions. When an offence does not lead to prosecution, the victim is often given a brief explanation: it cannot be proven.
Yet in an era in which the justice system is simultaneously investing in powerful analytical tools capable of mapping connections across vast datasets, a question of legitimacy arises. How is the citizen to understand and relate to the distinction between serious investigative failure, prioritisation, and negligence when it is never clarified?
“Over the course of a single day, a man repeatedly sent me (grossly) sexual images and video clips, of course without my consent. The material was not sent from an anonymous account and the sender was clear and highly identifiable,” writes the politician Jessica Stegrud on Facebook.
Nevertheless, the reasoning provided by the justice authorities reads: “Continued investigation is not expected to lead to the offence being substantiated. It is not possible to prove who committed the act.”
She concludes rhetorically: “Is that reasonable? Is it a sign of a functioning justice system, in your view?”
No, people decidedly do not think so. Her own comment field, and later many others, fill with angry and outraged individuals. What she describes is interpreted as negligence, disinterest, and general incompetence on the part of the police.
That may of course be the case; I do not know what the police have or have not done (I shall return to that problem), but it is not a foregone conclusion based on the information available to us.
What do we know – and what can be proven?
One must distinguish here between what feels self-evident and what one actually knows, and what can be proven in law. The perpetrator is not known simply because Jessica Stegrud or anyone else believes they know who it is.
It is entirely possible to create social media accounts in another person’s name. An existing account can be used unlawfully. Telephone numbers can be spoofed so that a text message or call appears to originate from a particular person when in fact it does not. Moreover, variants of generative AI and techniques such as deepfakes can produce videos and images that appear authentic but are not.
It is therefore insufficient that it appears a certain person is the sender, or that a specific, identifiable person features in the material, for us to know that this individual is the sender. The justice system does not operate on belief but on evidence; even what seems obvious must be investigated and proven.
Sexual harassment as an offence is normally regarded as sufficiently serious to allow the police to request logs and other technical information. It is therefore entirely possible—perhaps even likely—that they did so.
The fact that the case was discontinued does not automatically mean that the police refrained from gathering information. It may mean that the information obtained was insufficient to identify a specific individual.
What are the police actually doing?
When the police request data in such cases, they receive technical information such as IP addresses, timestamps, account names and details of the type of device used. This rarely equates to an identity.
An IP address may lead to a mobile network or a shared address used simultaneously by many people. An operator may sometimes only be able to indicate which subscription had access to the connection at a particular time. VPN services and other anonymisation solutions can render tracing even more difficult or impossible.
Even if the police trace a subscription, it is not self-evident who actually used the phone or computer at the relevant time. Subscriptions may be registered to someone other than the suspect; multiple individuals may have had access to the device. It is therefore not straightforward to link this to a specific person. Something appearing probable is not the same as being provably true.
If there is no supplementary evidence – such as seizure of a device on which the account is logged in, a confession, or other digital traces pointing in the same direction – the investigation often reaches an impasse. One may then have information, but not evidence in the legal sense.
In such circumstances, it is not remarkable if the police assess that it is not possible to prove who committed the act. And if they cannot do so, they will naturally discontinue the case.
That said, none of this demonstrates what the police did, or reasonably ought to have done, in Stegrud’s specific case. Nor do we know how common it is for such data to be requested, or how often the information obtained is sufficient to proceed. For some reason, this is not something the police choose to communicate. Nor do they communicate that this is roughly how their work proceeds and the difficulties they may face.
One may debate whether that is the correct choice, but it undoubtedly leads many people to form views about the police that are neither well-founded nor flattering.
What about prioritisation?
One of the things people “know” when discussing the matter is that unsolved cases are about prioritisation, with perceptions of what is not prioritised and what is prioritised instead. They are at least half right.
The police and the prosecution authority always have more cases than they have resources to investigate fully. This means that even when an offence is formally serious enough to justify certain measures, they must in practice weigh how far it is reasonable to go in each individual case. How much time should be devoted to technical analysis? How many leads should be pursued? How long should a case remain open before concluding that further work is unlikely to yield results?
Two cases may be legally equivalent yet receive different investigative depth depending on workload, available expertise, competing serious crimes and organisational priorities at that particular time.
“Reasonable measures” is therefore very much a relative concept.
Perception, legitimacy and communication
From a systemic perspective, this is central, as it contributes to the arbitrariness perceived by citizens. For the person affected, it does not appear as a question of prioritisation within a portfolio of cases, but as a valuation of their own offence: “Was it not important enough? Was I not worth more effort?”
Even understanding that prioritisation occurs, or accepting it in principle, does not mean one feels secure that the prioritisation is correct in general, or in one’s own specific case.
It is, however, communicatively delicate. If the police were to state openly that a case was discontinued due to (relative) resource constraints, this would likely be perceived as an admission of systemic failure. If they say nothing at all, it risks being interpreted as negligence or indifference, the disadvantages of which are obvious.
In practice, citizens often receive a standard response that explains very little and makes no mention of prioritisation.
When harsh realities are neither articulated nor explained, people form their own interpretations, often negative ones. And when cases spread – as here on social media – further questions arise: what was prioritised instead, and why? Many believe they know, reinforcing the image of a police force more concerned with drink-driving checks and “prosecuting pensioners for hate speech” than with “real crime”.
A closer review of police work, based on available statistics and data, might well demonstrate areas in which public perception is mistaken. But those engaged in heated discussion do not conduct such reviews. They rely on what they believe they see and draw conclusions accordingly. This is facilitated by the fact that the police have left the field open to speculation.
An information vacuum as information strategy
When a case is discontinued with a very brief standard justification, an information vacuum arises. For an outsider, it is impossible to determine whether the investigation was thorough but fruitless, or superficial and swiftly closed.
The lack of information about where in the process matters stalled – or whether there was a substantive process at all – makes it difficult for the individual to decide how to proceed. Should one contest the decision? Seek a review? Complain to an ombudsman? Approach the media? Or accept it? If the police have done everything reasonably expected, it is better to learn to live with the outcome than to expend time and energy contesting it. But if they have not, failing to fight becomes a betrayal of oneself and of the protection the justice system, under the social contract, promises.
For the victim, this often has tangible emotional consequences. Beyond the original violation comes a secondary burden: the feeling of not being taken seriously, of being left alone with the outcome, of suspecting that the justice system did not even try but simply moved on.
The lack of transparency also shifts the burden onto the individual victim to have the strength to challenge the decision. Those without resources, knowledge or stamina fall away. That is hardly satisfactory for authorities expected, according to every policy document and value statement, to treat citizens equally.
There is also a clear asymmetry of cost. For the justice system, a discontinued case is one decision among many. For the victim, it may be the endpoint of a long and distressing process.
This opacity therefore has consequences – not only for the individual victim but for trust in the justice system as a whole. When people cannot distinguish between a serious investigative failure and mere passivity, they tend to interpret matters in the worst possible light, especially where trust is already low.
Responsibility and transparency
Ironically, it is therefore the police’s own choice not to render their decisions more comprehensible that causes good work to be perceived as bad, and trust to erode as a result. It is the police, not the citizen, who have actively chosen not to be more transparent about their processes and priorities.
Ultimately, however, citizens pay the price. However one turns the matter, both individuals and the collective lose when they lack confidence in the justice system to which they have ceded their right to protect themselves.
All this would be troubling enough in itself. But the picture becomes considerably more problematic when one simultaneously considers the tools the police in fact use.
Great power. Very little insight.
The police are not necessarily as helpless in the face of technical difficulties as my initial description suggested. While discontinued investigations are often justified by stating that it cannot be proven who committed the act, that the evidential chain does not hold, or that the link between technical information and an individual is insufficiently strong, the police use one of the world’s most advanced systems for large-scale data integration, analysis and pattern recognition: a system designed precisely to connect fragmented information into coherent decision-making material, specifically developed for intelligence and surveillance purposes—namely Palantir Gotham.
Palantir Technologies’s Gotham platform enables the linking, visualisation and analysis of vast quantities of data. Concretely, information previously dispersed across different registers, reports and tips can be automatically connected and analysed as a whole. The system can display connections between persons, telephone numbers, vehicles, addresses and events, presenting them as network maps, timelines or geographical overviews in which patterns become visually apparent. It is not merely a matter of storing large volumes of data, but of identifying relationships that might otherwise be difficult or impossible for an individual case officer to detect.
In practice, the system may identify that a person appearing in a traffic stop also has links to an address associated with suspected activity, that the same telephone number recurs in multiple investigations, or that a particular pattern of events repeats in different parts of the country – or, at least in theory, map in detail a person suspected of sexual harassment.
AI and machine learning are central components of Gotham. Through Palantir’s AIP platform, generative and analytical AI are integrated into existing data processes, enabling predictive analysis, pattern identification and automated decision support.
This means the system does not merely show what has already occurred, but can assist in assessing what is likely to occur. Predictive analysis may, for example, identify areas at heightened risk of certain crimes based on historical patterns. Pattern recognition can detect anomalous behaviour – such as unusual transaction flows or communication patterns – warranting closer scrutiny.
Automated decision support implies that the system may suggest priorities or measures – such as discontinuing a case—based on aggregated data, although formal decisions must legally be taken by human officials.
To suggest that such a system could not succeed where more traditional systems fail strains credulity, whatever the police’s practical use of it.
Technical capability and political consequence
When the police employ systems enabling broad analysis of extensive datasets, yet simultaneously inform victims that “it cannot be proven who did what”, a crisis of legitimacy arises.
We face two principal possibilities: either Palantir’s capacity is utilised fully – raising serious questions about proportionality and legality – or it is used selectively and restrictively, prompting the question why such a controversial and powerful tool was procured at significant expense.
Palantir Gotham is about as far from a neutral technological choice as one can come.
Technology on a collision course with the rule of law
Swedish law rests upon clear principles: legality, proportionality, purpose limitation and transparency. Coercive measures and intrusions into personal integrity must be proportionate to the seriousness of the offence and the concrete investigative need. Data collection must be necessary, specific and controllable. These principles are expressed in procedural law, police legislation, public access and secrecy legislation, the GDPR and the EU AI Act.
Palantir’s systems, by contrast, are designed for a different paradigm: maximal data integration, broad cross-access to linked information and analysis at population level. Criticism of Palantir in other European countries has therefore centred precisely on legal and democratic oversight.
Palantir is a US company subject to the Cloud Act, which in certain circumstances may compel disclosure of data to US authorities even where the data are stored in Europe. This stands in direct tension with Swedish and European law and cannot be resolved merely by contractual arrangements.
There is also the issue of opacity. The source code is not open. The algorithms function as a black box. There is no external scrutiny of how data are weighted, how patterns are identified or how risk assessments are conducted. For Swedish authorities, this poses real challenges in relation to the GDPR’s transparency requirements and the AI Act’s demands for documentation, traceability and verifiable reliability in high-risk AI systems.
Constitutional conflicts in practice
In Germany, this has led to open conflict. In 2023, the Federal Constitutional Court held the use of Palantir Gotham unconstitutional, particularly criticising uncontrolled data integration from multiple sources, insufficient transparency regarding whose data were analysed, and inadequate safeguards against profiling individuals not suspected of crime.
What was deemed unlawful was, concretely, that individuals not suspected of any offence could have their data compiled, analysed and assessed by police without their knowledge, without the opportunity to object, and without clear legal limits. The state acquires a tool that sees connections everywhere, while the individual has no insight into when, how or why they have entered the system.
How is an authority unable fully to explain how a system functions to demonstrate that data processing has been necessary, proportionate and correct? And if the system is used in decisions to discontinue cases, how can the reasoning be explained to citizens?
Cost, dependency and digital sovereignty
Palantir licences are also extremely expensive. Adapting the system to European and national law often requires key functions to be disabled or restricted. German experience indicates that substantial functionality remains unused while IT departments are heavily burdened. Exit strategies are often lacking, creating vendor dependency difficult to reconcile with long-term public administration – an issue sharpened by increasing awareness of digital sovereignty. After five years of use, could the police change system even if they wished?
The political dimension
Another problematic aspect concerns Palantir’s political and ideological context. The company’s co-founder and principal owner is Peter Thiel. He has not only expressed far-reaching criticism of liberal democracy, but has also argued in favour of elite-driven societal models in which popular influence plays a subordinate role – a view of society in which political power ought to be concentrated in a technological and economic elite rather than legitimised through broad democratic participation.
It is therefore hardly surprising that he is often described as an almost archetypal “Bond villain”: an extraordinarily wealthy technology entrepreneur with openly system-critical ambitions and direct influence over political power. Thiel is a key financier behind Donald Trump and JD Vance, and has also funded candidates and networks linked to national-conservative movements in the United States.
This affects public acceptance – and thereby the legitimacy – of its use within a Swedish rule-of-law state. In the current geopolitical climate, the matter is far from straightforward. Given the prevailing situation, do we wish to allocate more of our taxpayers’ money to someone who supports Trump with substantial financial contributions?
It is, of course, possible to debate how such questions ought to be approached – both in general and in this particular instance – but at some point the public sector should ask itself which organisations it is supporting, directly and indirectly, and what the long-term consequences may be. Sweden does not exist in a vacuum; recent statements and developments in the United States have undeniably affected us, for example.
There are therefore many question marks surrounding the use of Palantir.
For citizens, the cumulative result is ambiguity and contradiction, which in the long run erodes their trust. If the state collects, analyses and cross-references data on a large scale, yet still cannot – or will not – explain how it operates and why it fails, trust is undermined. And without trust, neither legal certainty nor the rule of law functions effectively in practice.
The importance of transparency
The justice system is rightly bound by high standards of proof; it must not operate on suspicion, intuition or social consensus. It is also bound by prioritisation and resource constraints, which are practically unavoidable. It is increasingly dependent on complex, opaque technical systems that are difficult to explain – even to their users.
None of this need necessarily be problematic in itself. But when these factors combine with an almost total absence of intelligible feedback to the individual citizen, a serious problem arises.
For the victim, the entire process is reduced to a brief statement: it cannot be proven. What was tested, what was weighed, what was possible but deprioritised – all of this disappears. What remains is the sense that the state either did not care or could not cope. In practice, it scarcely matters which is true, as the experience is the same.
In Stegrud’s case, it is entirely possible that the police did everything reasonably possible. It is also entirely possible that they did not. The point is that we do not know. And that uncertainty is not an unfortunate by-product – it is a consequence of how the system has chosen to organise its work and its communication.
This is the core of the problem: not that the justice system sometimes fails, but that it does not explain its failures. Not that all offences are not solved, but that it is impossible to determine whether they were even examined in a manner proportionate to their seriousness.
Trust is not built on the state always succeeding, but on its being comprehensible, reviewable and, to some extent, accountable. When that possibility disappears, trust is replaced by speculation, and legal certainty by suspicion.
In that sense, increased transparency is not a benevolent concession by the police but a systemic necessity. Only when citizens can distinguish one thing from another can they accept that the state sometimes falls short. And that, in turn, is a precondition for maintaining the trust upon which legitimacy rests.
Jessica Stegrud’s question – Is it reasonable? Is it a sign of a functioning justice system? – cannot be answered with a simple yes or no. But so long as the system makes it impossible to understand why a case is discontinued, the answer for more and more people will be no. And that is a far greater problem than any single discontinued case.
