Personalnummer

A personalnummer is a unique identifier assigned to a person within administrative systems to enable unambiguous identification across records, services, and transactions. Personal numbers are typically issued by government authorities or employers and are designed to remain stable over a person’s lifetime. They are considered personal data and are protected by privacy laws.

In Sweden, the equivalent term is personnummer and it is widely used by public authorities and many private services. The number usually encodes the holder’s birth date and a four-digit individual number, and is commonly written in the form YYYYMMDD-XXXX or YYMMDD-XXXX. A plus sign may be used instead of a dash for individuals aged 100 or older. The personal number is used for tax, healthcare, social security, banking, and e-government access. People who are not registered in the population registry or who are non-residents may have a coordination number, which serves a related purpose in some contexts but carries different legal status.

Outside government use, organizations often assign internal personal numbers or employee numbers to manage human resources, payroll, access control, and IT provisioning. These numbers may be unique within the organization and are not equivalent to a national identity number.

Data protection regulations limit who may access personal numbers and for what purposes. Safeguards include data minimization, purpose limitation, and secure handling to reduce the risk of identity theft, fraud, or unauthorized profiling. Related terms include personal identity number and social security number.