In October 2011 Eliasson became head of the Swedish Social Insurance Agency. As head of the agency he ordered the article about himself on Swedish Wikipedia to be edited by agency staff to remove criticism. According to a staff poll at the agency, employees at the agency had very low confidence at Eliasson.
In November 2014 Eliasson was appointed the new head of the Swedish Police Authority and he took up the position 1 January 2015 while the authority was in the middle of a major restructuring. His appointment was criticized by the police union on the grounds that Eliasson is not a police officer and had no experience of policing. In September 2015, during the ongoing European migration crisis, Eliasson, being the chief of police, blocked attempts by Swedish regional police and customs authorities to erect border controls. Consequently, the cabinet ministers received no request from police to organise border checks. The controls were ordered in November 2016 by the cabinet. On or about 27 January 2016, Eliasson sparked controversy in Sweden and beyond by appearing to sympathize with a Somalian "teenage" asylum-seeker accused of having murdered social worker Alexandra Mezher in Mölndal, a suburban community near Gothenburg. Later, it emerged that the killer was not under 18 and possibly not even a teenager, but had lied about his age in order to receive favourable treatment when claiming asylum. In June 2016 Eliasson led a campaign to hand out armband saying "don't grope" to curb groping and sexual assaults, like those at the 2014 and 2015 We Are Sthlm sexual assaults. The armbands were criticised as being ineffectual and that they laid the responsibility for stopping the assaults on the victims instead of the perpetrators. In December 2016, Sifo conducted a poll on public opinion on how Dan Eliasson performs as chief of police where 50% stated a negative or very negative view and 11% stated a positive or very positive view. According to police reports commented upon by Eliasson in June 2015, high crime rate areas numbered 15 in 2015 and 23 in 2017. In October 2017 Eliasson was interviewed by SREkot where he was queried about his promise in May 2015 to regain control in areas of Sweden with high crime rates. Instead of regaining control, he admitted that the number of such areas had increased. He stated that two years earlier he had not predicted police resources would be saturated by migration, gang shootings, serious crime and terrorism to the degree that was the case. The reason for this inaccurate prediction was that policy makers including himself had not realised the full extent of the problems because they did not fit in the popular image of Sweden as a safe and prosperous country. On January 31, 2018 it was announced that Eliasson would step down as Police Commissioner. His tenure as head of police ended 15 February 2018 and he was replaced by Anders Thornberg.
Eliasson commenced his position as head of the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency 5 March 2018. Eliasson is as of 2018 the highest paid civil servant in Sweden with a monthly salary of 160000 SEK.
Trivia
Dan Eliasson is also known for his history in the punk scene with his band Bad Boo Band. The band's biggest hit was a 1979 7-inch single called "Knulla i Bangkok".
