It has come to light that the Directorate of Labor is tracking the IP-addresses of those who log on to their website to register for unemployment payments.
The matter came to light when a woman who was receiving unemployment payments traveled to Sweden. The Directorate of Labor requires those receiving unemployment payments to log on to their homepage regularly, and by law, those receiving unemployment cannot leave the country. When it was discovered that she was posting from Sweden and not Iceland, her payments were ended.
After she lodged a complaint with the Data Protection Authority, they ruled that while it was perfectly fine for the Directorate to log IP-addresses, they should announce on their website that those logging on are being tracked.
As it is, Vísir reports that about 12% of those receiving unemployment payments are foreigners living in Iceland. By law, immigrants to Iceland are not entitled to unemployment payments until they have lived and worked in Iceland at least one year.