Traditionally, archives are associated with a yearning for keeping, storing and retention. It is just as fair to say that archives are gatherings of documents that for some reason were not erased, destroyed, or lost. Archives are therefore the results of constant negotiations between keeping and destroying records. There are several reasons for keeping records, as well as there may be different arguments why certain records should be destroyed. In this article, I will discuss the implications of a particular form of record destruction, motivated by ethical reasons, when certain documents are regarded as menacing to personal privacy. I will use empirical examples from Sweden, and for simplicity reasons, I will label this phenomenon ethical destruction, a term used particularlyby Swedish archivists since the 1970s. My aim is to demonstrate that the history of present-day Swedish regulations about ethical destruction is one of competing interests. Some agents have argued for the destruction of certain sensitive records, while others argued for their retention, depending on shifting viewpoints and motives.