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Albanian prosecutors probe huge suspected leak of personal data
- casualrandomcom 5y agoActually, I don't see a scandal in this, all income should be in the public domain. In fact it is, in various contexts: public workers salaries are public in the US, in my country tax sheets are public record, you only need to identify yourself to get them.
- spoonjim 5y agoI don’t want my family members asking me for money saying “I know how much you make.” I don’t want criminals targeting me knowing my income.
- lkschubert8 5y agoCould it be public just linked to role and not name? Still has issues with roles that are unique enough to be identifying though.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- topkai22 5y agoIn the US, we have reasonably good survey information at the occupation level, see https://www.bls.gov/bls/blswage.htm https://www.bls.gov/bls/blswage.htm It’s big downsides are that it’s missing information about seniority/tenure, benefits and might struggle with uncommon pay methods like stock grants. However, with other resources like Glassdoor I feel you can get a decent picture of the pay situation for a given role in the US.
- spoonjim 5y agoThere's a big difference between someone saying "I see on LinkedIn you're a Staff Software Engineer at Google and you make at least $500K" and being able to brush them off with "don't believe everything you read" and actually having government tax records in hand.
- casualrandomcom 5y agoDoes not sound as a healthy family dynamics. Healthy dynamics would be: they talk about their problems and you offer your help, based on your availability. When family actually asks for money I am happy to help all the more. I want criminals to leave me be because they know my income. I really don't understand the criminal's point: it's like people ordinarily live in rags to hide their availability. This is not how it works, as I can see: people typically try and show off more than what they really have, why aren't they afraid of criminals?
- ghostwriter 5y ago> all income should be in the public domain. Would you mind sharing your passport data and income numbers here so that it becomes public domain?
- frenchyatwork 5y agoIs it not obvious that one person's data being public (and the resulting information asymmetry) is a lot different than everyone's data being public?
- ghostwriter 5y agoit's not obvious, could you clarify why does it make a difference whether there are more people sharing such data with you? For instance, if I believe that open-source projects have to be released with a public domain license (effective zero license), it doesn't matter if others want to follow my example, I can still apply my beliefs onto my projects to my own percieved benefit.
- alkonaut 5y agoThis is the same argument as ”if you want higher taxes why don’t you donate money to the state?”, which is of course a non-argument. Taxes (and thus income) is public information in several countries and they don’t appear to be Orwellian hellscapes.
- ghostwriter 5y ago> This is the same argument as ”if you want higher taxes why don’t you donate money to the state?”, which is of course a non-argument. why is it a non-argument if everyone knows that talking the talk is different from walking the walk? Higher taxes is not a means to itself, it has a specific goal of funding causes that you care about. Now, if there's a cause that you deeply care about, why wouldn't you donate your own money towards that cause as a matter of your exercising your free will instead of desiring that everyone else are unuiformly forced into following your ideals?
- datavirtue 5y agoWhen I was working in the public sector everyone flew off the handle when a local journalist requested all salary information and published it. Feathers flying everywhere for weeks. I loved it. The journalist wanted everyone in this poor community to know how many six figure incomes were being doled out at the college. Very comfortable stress-free lives for people with connections while everyone serving them was basically destitute. I was making $12 an hour building software at the time.
- selimthegrim 5y agoPlease someone come do this in New Orleans
- xwolfi 5y agoBut can others get them ? I mean imagine I'm Youssuf Fofana (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Ilan_Halimi#Gang_of_Barbarians https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Ilan_Halimi#Gang_o...) and I decide to be smart and kidnap for ransom only high earners in a low security district to get tolerable rewards, I could optimize kidnapping to get the lowest risk/reward ratio much more easily, as I d know exactly who earns how much. I dont mind telling people I trust my salary, but I mind telling people who want my money ...
- onion2k 5y agoI'm quite fortunate that I work for a company that's very transparent about pay now, but I've worked at a few places in the past where sharing your salary details was considered a serious offence. Obviously the point was to maintain paying as little as possible. I occasionally wonder what would have happened if the payroll database had ever been leaked, or if there was a leak from HMRC (UK version of the IRS). I strongly suspect it would have been the end of the company as a lot of people would have walked out. You'd think that risk would have been enough to equalize the wages a bit, but it definitely wasn't the case at any of the places I experienced. I guess the existential risk is less of a threat than the cost savings are a benefit.
- trasz 5y agoDoesn't law explicitly allow sharing this kind of data?
- onion2k 5y agoI don't know. I've never needed to talk to a lawyer about it thankfully. If it is something that's explicitly protected then plenty of companies are getting it wrong.
- benmanns 5y agoUS law does. That may or may not be the case in the UK.
- nly 5y agoMy contract (in the UK) explicitly states that sharing compensation or bonus details is considered gross misconduct, which is a dismissable offense.
- trasz 5y agoThis looks like a typical lie that employers like to put into contracts, and it seems it is: https://metro.co.uk/2018/11/09/can-your-boss-stop-you-talking-about-salary-with-your-coworkers-8122544/ https://metro.co.uk/2018/11/09/can-your-boss-stop-you-talkin...
- superpope99 5y agoAny Albanians on here who can validate if their own salary is in the list?
- newsclues 5y agoTransparency leads to accountability
- I_am_tiberius 5y agoIncome transparency increases the chances of becoming a victim of a crime.
- nokya 5y agoFully agree. And tbh I am quite astonished to see so many comments in this page that seem to advocate otherwise. Disclosing salaries with identities can endanger many individuals, and not because they cheated the system or committed a crime. It feels like advocating for full disclosure on who bets on what in stock trading.
- datavirtue 5y agoCitation required
- xorcist 5y agoIf that was true crime would be higher in countries where this information is public. Facts seems to point to the inverse correlation.
- nokya 5y agoIn my opinion, there is a difference between living in a country where all salary information is assumed public (and all personal decisions taken accordingly), and a country where salary information was kept confidential from people around you until it was abruptly made public without notice. I am really trying to understand how both situations could feel the same to you but...I guess I would need some help convincing.
- newsclues 5y agoWhy would that occur, and why rely on obscurity for security rather than changing the structural fundamentals that lead to danger?
- baobabKoodaa 5y agoAll taxable income is public in Finland as well, although the information comes with a delay of about 1 year, so you can't make out exactly how much your co-worker or neighbor makes right now.
- xeromal 5y agoI'm not fond of that if not just to prevent people from robbing me.
- 2-718-281-828 5y agoThere is a strong relationship between: "A society strives for transparency and equality." and "It is unlikely to get robbed in a society".
- xeromal 5y agoSounds idealistic not rooted in realism.
- 2-718-281-828 5y agowell, good luck trying to get robbed in Finland ...
- ademup 5y ago"...Any other use of it is a criminal act, which endangers the social order by violating the private security of every citizen," I hear this in a deep and booming Orwellian voice. What specific danger does this put anyone in? I certainly can see the owners of capital being upset when their workers find out how egregious the disparity of income is, but outside of that?
- petesergeant 5y ago> What specific danger does this put anyone in? Targeting by organised crime
- jjirsa 5y agoTargeting for home invasion Targeting for extortion Targeting in general
- iso1631 5y agoOn the whole you can infer the wealth of someone from the type of home, the type of car, etc, and if you're trying to get money from someone, someone with large assets is likely to be far more lucrative than someone with a large salary
- endisneigh 5y agoI doubt this happens - in the USA you can find the owner for virtually any property and high income areas don’t necessarily see more organized crime
- vorpalhex 5y agoI have had individuals use my public property records in social engineering attempts. They were dumb enough to use a registered number so they knocked it off when I responded with their name and address in return, but I am sure more voracious criminals have targeted homeowners.
- nisegami 5y ago
- fault1 5y agoIsn't this the norm in places like Sweden? https://www.ft.com/content/2a9274be-72aa-11e7-93ff-99f383b09ff9 https://www.ft.com/content/2a9274be-72aa-11e7-93ff-99f383b09... I suspect in the future all salaries will be public.
- TazeTSchnitzel 5y agoThe requirement for state institutions to be transparent, in the Swedish constitution, goes a lot deeper than most other countries.
- dijit 5y agoYou can buy a book for the equivalent of $20 which contains the income information for everyone in a district. I bought one one year for half of Malmo.
- alkonaut 5y agoNote that it's not salaries that are public per se, but how much you paid in taxes. For a typical person with few side incomes and 1 job, the taxable income is obviously very close to "salary".
- Rucadi 5y agoA salary is the contract between the employer and the employee, it should remain a secret unless one of the two wants to disclose it.
- JKolios 5y agoThat's what I'm telling the IRS next year.
- zo1 5y agoIt's amazing how some people value privacy so much to an almost "irrational" degree, but then are perfectly fine making this sort of info "public".
- stevehawk 5y agoi think the reason some of us value the privacy is because we're on the higher end of the pay spectrum. And while many people think that making this information public will benefit everyone, I just see it as a way of reducing my potential ceiling (money is finite, this is a zero sum game) and causing animosity amongst my coworkers and friends. And frankly, not a lot of people can handle being told they aren't as good as their coworker, which is why they make less.
- alkonaut 5y agoThe reasoning behind having it public is (I believe) that it lets people see that the taxes are paid. A bit like court processes are public because you wouldn’t trust the system if it took place behind closed doors.
- tut-urut-utut 5y agoMany people in commenter are confusing transparency and theft. Transparency is something that should be regulated by law, but this is a data leak, and it can't be viewed positively.
- alkonaut 5y agoI don’t think anyone here that argues that the information should have been public means that this makes it a non-issue. If it was in fact not public, then it’s a problem. The argument when one argues that it’s not very sensitive is that it’s not a huge scandal for not-very-sensitive info to leak.
- CamelRocketFish 5y agoWhen your personal data is stored in company/government databases, never consider “if” your data will be leaked, but “when”.
- beebeepka 5y agoThis reminds me of that time, two or so years ago, when almost everyone's personal ID in Bulgaria was released and similar data could have been obtained for almost any adult. Quite embarrassing and dangerous. Stuff like this should be a wake up call and indication of worse things to come The only good thing about all this is that I've been looking for a site just like this for a long time. Bookmarked.
- 1cvmask 5y agoI heard that having this data led to the destruction of Nokia as it bred huge resentment and jealousy among employees who had joined later because of lower upside from stock.
- tyingq 5y agoIn the US military, you could figure out exactly what anyone made, because it was based on a rank + tenure formula that did not have many exceptions. There was some regional stuff around housing allowances, hazard pay, etc, but that was also formula driven. The "secret" then, was about how to get promoted faster, and not what your pay was. Not that it's a solution for the private sector, but it was easy to understand.
- topkai22 5y agoDon’t forget reenlistment bonuses- those can be quite substantial and, while formula driven, are complex enough to be opaque.
- jcims 5y agoPretty much all federal/state compensation is public info. Here's info for Ohio - https://checkbook.ohio.gov/Salaries/ https://checkbook.ohio.gov/Salaries/ I can search for my wife by name and find her salary from previous years.
- tyingq 5y agoAh, it was a while ago. Government civilians also had "GS<some number>" pay grades, but it was less easy to find out what <some number> they were, since no uniforms.
- SMAAART 5y agoSooner or later it's going to happen in a large country like the US as well, it's not a matter of IF, it's a matter of WHEN. And that's going to be quite amusing to see unfolding.
- jillesvangurp 5y agoTax declarations are public information in e.g. Finland. You can easily find out what your neighbors or colleagues are earning. It's not causing many issues other than people having a better negotiation position when e.g. negotiating their salary with employers or having unions do so on their behalf. In Albania, the interesting thing of course is that it is quite a bit less organized as a country and that it has a lot of issues with e.g. corruption, smuggling, etc. So the declared income only tells part of the story and it's all the off the book stuff that is really juicy and interesting. Corruption and tax dodging are highly private activities; just like other things you are not supposed to do. Only an issue if you have something to hide. The right to graft, fraud, and theft are not protected by the UN declaration of human rights or most constitutions. Rather the contrary. But yet they are still widely spread in many countries. Transparency is one way to expose that.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago>Corruption and tax dodging are highly private activities >Transparency is one way to expose that. Well yeah sure, but that's not what happened here. The transparency brought by this leak is only in regards to salaried (honest) people's wages, so the people who earn dirty money from corruption, bribes and other illegal activities are not impacted by this at all, as those deals are always off the books, usually in form of cash, maybe crypto nowadays, but often also in real estate or other gifts such as cars, artwork or various favors (I give your construction company this lucrative government contract, and in return your construction company will build my McMansion for free, or, you hire my son/nephew as an exec in your company). So this leak most likely does not affect criminals at all, just people who probably had managed to secure incomes much higher than the median (tech workers, entrepreneurs, etc.)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- errcorrectcode 5y agoGood for Finland. In other places, it's not nice to count other people's money, along with their prescriptions, medical conditions, and everything else that other people prefer to keep private. ("Transparency" without control over your own information telling the whole world vs. opt-in sharing.)
- pdfreader 5y ago