It really isn't unique. This report is clearly part of an agenda to establish a two-tier surveillance state.
> The report advocates for legislation that would specifically address privacy concerns for all public servants,
Instead of taking the obvious stance that legislation should ensure the privacy of all people equally, they are only interested in protecting government employees. Sadly, this seems to be a global trend taking root in many countries and it brings me great despair for the future.
> elected officials...have to expose their street address to get elected. This generates real risk.
Is there an epidemic of local German politicians being harassed and assaulted at their homes?
I can think of no reason why constituents should not know where the people in power over them live. Elected officials should not be able to hide from their constituents.
When I was a youth in the 80s and 90s, it seems like our desire for privacy was focused on what we were doing and talking about; we didn’t want people to know our activities or what our conversations were about. Someone listening in while you talked to someone else was considered an invasion of privacy. However, we freely shared identifying information and didn’t think that was something that needed to be protected. In my town, our phone book white pages had everyone in town’s name, phone number, and address. Those details weren’t things we thought needed to be kept hidden from the public. Every now and then you would hear about someone who was “unlisted”, but that was considered odd.
Now, people will freely post pictures about their activities in public places, have public conversations, and share all sorts of details about how they live their lives that we would never have shared with strangers 40 years ago. At the same time, the idea of publishing our name, address, and phone number for everyone to see is horrifying. We even have a term for it, “doxing”, which many people want to make a crime, and we would never have even thought about it 40 years ago.
I think there are a ton of valid reasons for this shift, but it does make me think. A major part of why we want to keep those details private is because we have created so many systems that allow you to commit fraud or take advantage of people with only those details. While I think we should maintain and extend our ability to keep those details about us secret, I also think we need to do something about the systems we have in place that allow you to do so much damage to a person with only knowing these basic details about them.
I think that posting street addresses for "maximum transparency" is a bit silly, and it would probably make sense to repeal legislation that makes government employee's sensitive private information public. That principle should also apply equally to all citizens, though. If I'm not mistaken, I believe anyone who hosts a website in Germany is mandated by law to post their address on the website, which is completely unfathomable to me.
We do also see the two-tier surveillance hierarchy attempting to be established across the EU, in general. Chat Control in all its forms is always proposed with an exemption for government employees.
C'est la vie!
The rest of my reply reflects my understanding based on listening to my partner every day, who works in public records for the county where we live.
From what I've learned, public employees do seem uniquely vulnerable. Two employees (that we know about) have committed suicide in the past year or two; it was strongly suggested the pressure and harassment endured on the job was a factor.
- At any public-facing job (say, a restaurant server or customer support), are you legally required to respond to every single person? And in doing so, reveal your full, real name? Not required like "your employer wants you to" required, but LEGALLY required, like you can be sued if you don't? - If someone is making threats or clearly abusing the system intentionally, can you politely ask them to leave, trespass them, or just refuse to help them further? Or are you still required to help them anyway by law? - Are you obligated to help someone even if they're anonymous? - Are your own communications and employment details public records? - Are you legally obligated to allow anyone to come to your place of work, and be physically present, while you help them? - Are millions of people as angry at your employer as people generally are at "the government"?
Here are just a few of the things I've heard about the public records situation where we live:
- There are a handful of people who are infamous throughout the departments for abusing the system with dozens or hundreds of broad requests (and no, these aren't reporters or being doing interesting studies of anything). Some of these people are even disgruntled former employees or relatives of former employees, who are doing so purely for retaliation, because they know it will overload the system. But, the public records law is strong, so there is no provision for denying them access. The estimated time to fully complete some of these individuals' public records request is decades. As in, "we expect your final delivery of records to be complete in the year 2050." - Even after people receive their records, some pretend not to know how to read them purely to waste more time (like not knowing how to open a zip file - which every operating system does automatically - or a PDF). When an alternative is sent, they move on to the next excuse for not being able to read them. The law requires assisting these people, even if they're faking it. - Requestors frequently think they know the law better than the public employees serving them (and they're almost always wrong), and will heap all kinds of abuse on the records officers for perceived violations and incompetence. This abuse ranges from simple name calling, to threatening lawsuits, to sending employees their home address (in an "I know where you live" way as a veiled threat), to sending them the addresses of their parents, even to calling and harassing their parents. Can you imagine your parents being harassed because someone was unhappy with how you were doing your job? All while you were doing your job efficiently and correctly? - The law allows for the public to review physical records at the department in person, not just accept email/portal delivery. So, the enraged person threatening you and your family has a legal right to come hang out in your office with you. - The legal teams for said departments are extremely cautious about running afoul of the public records entitlement laws, or being perceived as retaliating, even if it means their employees are receiving threats and feel unsafe.
So, what to do? To me, it makes more sense for the solution to be on the job & "citizens' rights" side rather than the "protect employees from data brokers" side. Everyone should be more protected from data brokers. But public employees also deserve additional protection from malicious actors in the course of carrying out their duties - that is to say, yes, you have the right to request public records, but the government should have a lower tolerance for people abusing and system and acting maliciously.
For example, loans. They would be priced against average risk, and low-risk individuals with privacy would pay the same risk premium as high-risk individuals.
This may be fine for individuals who voluntary give up privacy at chosen moments for chosen partners. It would be more complex and expensive to operate that general open brokerages.
All very, very recent systems in the grander scheme.
If you are working in the public sector, your info will be completely out there. That is how a functioning government works with accountability.
Public is bad, must make them more accountable and more surveilled.
Do not watch the public servants, do not notice that they act more like "private" servants.
Whether or not violence committed against public servants happens at a higher rate than the private citizenry doesn't impact the truthfulness of that statement. So if the article wants to make a coherent argument for hiding this type of information about public servants from the public, it needs to attack that point.
In practical terms businesses are required to collect employee PII in order to comply with various regulations. But that's not "entitled" that's "government imposed for unrelated reasons". (Those unrelated reasons being illegal aliens and tax compliance.)
There's also an element of risk management with the employer wanting to run a background check. But there's no particular reason that can't be done via a mutually trusted third party, similar to escrow. In fact it often is done that way in the residential rental business - the applicant authorizes the check and pays the third party who then furnishes the report to the landlord.
