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.
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.
> 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.
I can think of plenty of reasons. Political violence in democracies is on the rise globally, and not the sort of organized political violence that people might use to liberate themselves from the chains of oppressors, but rather the kind of lunatic political violence that is committed by irrational lone actors who are fundamentally mentally unwell.
I believe you can have political transparency without involving people's homes and families.
Actually the air traffic controller in question was Swiss not German.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_%C3%9Cberlingen_mid-air_c...
> Political violence in democracies is on the rise globally
Citation needed, but even if we say for the sake of argument this is accurate, that doesn't naturally lead to this outcome.
What makes violence political?
Is political violence inherently worse? I think it is, but there's at least an argument to be made that it isn't.
Is stopping that political violence worth the worst case scenario where we make it harder for the public to get this type of information?
Why would my direct supervisor need my home address?
I don't think any employer has any right to know their employee's home address, to be honest.
> Is political violence inherently worse? I think it is, but there's at least an argument to be made that it isn't.
I think this question is rather besides the point. Random acts of violence are bad, so let's not make anybody's home address public information. In the age of the internet, we routinely observe millions of people fixating on one person for some perceived grievance or another, wherein it only takes one lunatic among those millions having access to private information to result in a tragedy. We don't have to make it so easy for these tragedies to happen.
Regardless of whether this should be the case or not, it is the case is every country I can think of.
I agree I think we're straying from the point a bit. When is the last time you can point to an act of political violence that would not have occurred had some public servant or elected official's address not been on a website or spreadsheet somewhere?
These things simply don't happen enough to warrant further limiting government officials' accountability to the public.
And we are specifically talking about advocacy for legislation to change that. The report advocates for changing legislation to benefit government employees as a privileged class, while I think the common-sense position is to ensure the privacy of every citizen.
> When is the last time you can point to an act of political violence that would not have occurred had some public servant or elected official's address not been on a website or spreadsheet somewhere?
These attacks happen often, but a particularly notable case was that in the US, June 2025, where a mentally unhinged terrorist assassinated two public figures in their home, shot two others in another home (although they survived), and had a hitlist of other legislator's homes to target, although he was stopped before he could continue his spree. In fact he had stopped by four homes in total, but by chance the occupants were gone from one and the police were already checking in on another and he left without acting there. This was a tragedy that could only have happened in the way it did because of home addresses being so freely available, and it was pure luck that the tragedy was not even worse than it happened to be.
> These things simply don't happen enough to warrant further limiting government officials' accountability to the public.
What accountability to the public is meaningfully gained by letting people attack your home? "Random people going to legislator's doorsteps" is not a legitimate part of the democratic process of any country I'm familiar with.
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!
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.
"In the grander scheme" interstate highways and air travel and scuba diving are new too, what about them?
As you say, on balance some of them are good/should be preserved, and some should be reconsidered.
If you are working in the public sector, your info will be completely out there. That is how a functioning government works with accountability.
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.