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Comment by mrweasel | Hacker News Reader

I believe Sweden has pretty good policing, and the Swedes are just about as honest as you could ever expect a nation to be, but if this was in "rural" Denmark and someone decided to raid the store, there would be very little stopping them. Police is in many cases at least 30 minutes away, if not more, and have no resources to investigate the theft of 10L of milk.

In many cases the staff is a store is just as much present to scare of any one wanting to steal. Even if we've seen gangs just walk out with massive amounts of goods, and the staff understandably choosing to not confront them.

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> I believe Sweden has pretty good policing

This was true 30 years ago. Today the police is all but abolished, especially in rural areas. I wouldn't be surprised if there were police regions the size of Denmark with a single police car.

My experience is directly opposite yours, funnily enough. I spend almost all my summers in Denmark and find people amazingly honest and friendly.

I think people are just people, wherever you go - neither more nor less honest than anywhere else (given the opportunity).

Even in Stockholm the 'local' police branches often close over the summer.

I've only needed to dial the emergency number twice (luckily) and both times I was placed in a queue. Another time when kids were smashing bikes on my street in central Stockholm on a warm summer evening, the police simply said there was no-one available to send.

I'm not sure that'd be a solid strategy. You have to scan your ID to get into the store. So just to raid for a 10L of milk, you'd have to then break and enter, not just steal the milk. The store is probably riddled with cameras and, with the low population density, there's not a great chance you can get away with breaking and entering, much less stealing.

Currently no one would think twice about a masked person entering a store, so I'm not sure about the usefulness of the cameras.

I would like to see how secure the entry points really are, because I doubt it a lock.

BankID which is used to open the doors uses a password and a second factor for authentication (hardware token or secret from SIM card).

As most grocery stores aren't open 24 hours there is plenty of opportunity for people to break into grocery stores with no one in them and steal but that isn't a common enough issue to worry about.

>Police is in many cases at least 30 minutes away, if not more, and have no resources to investigate the theft of 10L of milk.

Just for reference [0], NYC police's response times for "serious" and "non-critical" 911 calls are close to or over 10 minutes. Responses to "alarms" (which I assume would be things like B&E to a shop after hours) is over 30 minutes.

[0] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/911reporting/reports/end-to-end-re...

People in rural towns are also as honest as they come, but even so I'd expect trouble by youngsters. But maybe the cameras are enough of a deterrent.

I could also see a solution where you need to identify yourself in order to be let in through the doors. If you have been spotted letting someone else in who proceeds to steal or vandalize, that person could be held accountable.

> I could also see a solution where you need to identify yourself in order to be let in through the doors.

The article explains that it requires BankID authentication and a pre-registered banking card to enter.

I see, somehow I missed that. Well, then I think they have their bases covered. Looking forward to trying one out.

I was thinking that, something like what Amazon has done, where you need to ID with the app on your phone, but with no security, you can just jump whatever is blocking your entry.

The stores can't be to secure, people need to be able to exit safely.

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