The report linked in the article doesn't mention existing laws mandating disclosure of public servant details or anything of that nature. It primarily focuses on private data brokers collecting and selling data, a threat model which applies to all people equally. Rather than addressing the problem at its root, which is the data brokers blatantly violating the privacy of everyone, by all appearances they are perfectly fine with what data brokers do as long as they are able to exempt themselves from it.

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.

Perhaps a uniquely American opinion, but employees can opt out quickly and easily by not getting paid by public funds. Most public sector jobs have private sector equivalents. If you want to help people find jobs and your privacy is important enough to make public sector work untenable, get a job with one of the private sector organizations that does that.

> 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.

Private payrolls are published though.

You phrased this as "many of the other concerns mentioned in the article", but this concern is not mentioned in the article, nor in the linked report. It falls on the article/report to make the case for its claims, not for charitable HN comments, and it fails to do so. The article highlights three specific concerns: that there is no ability for public servants to compel the redaction of personal data from public records, that there is no broad law preventing data brokers from selling information obtained from property records and court filings, and that there is no recourse to sue data brokers for violating local laws that do exist. All of those apply equally to private citizens, and therefore the claim that these problems are "unique" to public servants is not supported. Furthermore, these claims are the basis for which the report goes on to suggest making a carve-out in legislation specifically covering public servants rather than the general public for the problems it identified, when all of those problems should very much be addressed on a general basis.

See also: DHS/TSA/ICE, credit scores, stock buybacks and self-dividends.

All very, very recent systems in the grander scheme.