Albanian prosecutors probe huge suspected leak of personal data

[baobabKoodaa]

All 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]

I'm not fond of that if not just to prevent people from robbing me.

[jillesvangurp]

Tax 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]

>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.)

[errcorrectcode]

Good 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.)

[fault1]

Isn't this the norm in places like Sweden?

https://www.ft.com/content/2a9274be-72aa-11e7-93ff-99f383b09...

I suspect in the future all salaries will be public.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

The requirement for state institutions to be transparent, in the Swedish constitution, goes a lot deeper than most other countries.

[alkonaut]

Note 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".

[dijit]

You 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.

[onion2k]

I'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.

[AQuantized]

That information is under pretty tight lock and key in the UK, perhaps for specifically this reason. I'd say the risk is pretty minimal.

[xwolfi]

Now imagine you share it with criminals. Do you imagine a few creative ways to use such a list ? That's what Albania did.

[trasz]

Doesn't law explicitly allow sharing this kind of data?

[bko]

> Obviously the point was to maintain paying as little as possible

Is this the only reason one would want to withhold disclosing everyone's salary?

Full disclosure would likely lead to one salary for every person in that role. But anyone that's spent any time in a company knows that not everyone is the same. I would hope top performers get paid better than mediocre or below average employees. And if everyone had all the info, that would open up huge legal liability due to the perception of bias.

There would also be complaints and comparisons across roles as well. There's also the privacy component.

I think the idea of pay transparency but in practice if you dump everyone's salaries it would case a disturbance and a huge cultural shift in an org that didn't disclose salaries before.

[casualrandomcom]

Actually, 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.

[ghostwriter]

> 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?

[xwolfi]

But can others get them ? I mean imagine I'm Youssuf Fofana (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 ...

[datavirtue]

When 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.

[spoonjim]

I 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.

[CamelRocketFish]

When your personal data is stored in company/government databases, never consider “if” your data will be leaked, but “when”.

[tut-urut-utut]

Many 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]

I 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.

[tyingq]

In 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.

[jcims]

Pretty much all federal/state compensation is public info. Here's info for Ohio - https://checkbook.ohio.gov/Salaries/

I can search for my wife by name and find her salary from previous years.

[topkai22]

Don’t forget reenlistment bonuses- those can be quite substantial and, while formula driven, are complex enough to be opaque.

[beebeepka]

This 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.

[Rucadi]

A salary is the contract between the employer and the employee, it should remain a secret unless one of the two wants to disclose it.

[zo1]

It'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".

[alkonaut]

The 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.

[JKolios]

That's what I'm telling the IRS next year.

[1cvmask]

I 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.

[newsclues]

Transparency leads to accountability

[I_am_tiberius]

Income transparency increases the chances of becoming a victim of a crime.

[superpope99]

Any Albanians on here who can validate if their own salary is in the list?

[Trilecce]

I need to see the list first, anyone got a link to share?

[ademup]

"...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?

[matsemann]

Here in Norway all salaries are publicly searchable*. Based on my experience of this, I can't see what bad things will come of this?

If anything, hidden salaries only benefit employers, as they have all the knowledge.

* you can know everyone's taxable income and net worth. What deductions people have, other incomes etc aren't separated, so it's not an exact number.

[lotsofpulp]

That is the only reason. The only parties that benefit from lack of price transparency are large buyers and sellers. In this case, large buyers of labor would be big or well funded employers, and large sellers would be people selling their labor for above average prices.

[petesergeant]

> What specific danger does this put anyone in?

Targeting by organised crime

[xwolfi]

Well I mean, yeah nobody will die except for the odd ransom when people can compile target lists more easily but I dont know Albania enough, just like if all health record were released. People you know would giggle a bit, then blah move on.

However, it's still quite infuriating. First, salary comparison are usually irational and lead to toxic jealousy more than social justice: I think it's not right to do that without at least public consultation and you should not defend it as "not a big deal". It is.

[lettergram]

Put it in a different perspective.

If a highly skilled and more valuable employee is making 2x his or her peers then this type of disclosure reduces the companies ability to retain said employee.

For instance, now everyone will demand a raise and the company will potentially have to lay off some employees to ensure a higher salary and same profit.

Alternatively, the most qualified people may leave. There are times where smaller companies may pay much higher for the right people in the right positions.

[systemvoltage]

Isn’t that exactly the opposite of being Orwellian? Privacy of citizens is at stake.

[vizzah]

These are not just some particular profession salaries. The article says it identifies persons, their profession AND their salaries. And such list, as you could guess, is an enormous privacy breach.

[iso1631]

Owners of captal don't take income! Simply take an negative-interest loan using your captial as collateral

Only the working class are dumb enough to pay

[NikolaNovak]

>>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?

There is this idealistic belief that knowing salary will make all people better off. I also find it laughable the notion that "owners of capital" will be the only ones upset, as opposed to 50+% of us who merely have somebody that makes more money, or the other 50% of us who now have a painted target (not necessarily just for simple physical theft; but also resentment and social consequences).

I may be a cynic in my old age, but I don't see easy mandatory connecting dots between "Share salary information" "Step ???" "Everybody Profit!".

I have not yet met a single person in my life - friend, family, acquaintance, colleague, team member, boss, personal nemesis, whoever -- that openly and with full self-awareness says "yes, I'm not very good; I don't work very hard; I should be getting paid less than this other person".

What I see day in and day out is everybody wanting the best of everything. And fair enough! It would be irrational to desire less for yourself and your family.

So if you have 10 people and they're on a bell curve in performance and happen to be on a perfectly matching bell curve in salary, if anybody here believes that open salary information will result in 10 out of those 10 people being happy and satisfied with their situation... well, I want to join you in your fantasy world of unicorns and rainbows. In reality, 9 people would want to have the same salary as your top performer, while not being willing or able (but primarily willing) to invest effort, work, ownership, responsibility... and eventually the other top performer quitting too as they were harassed, resented, bullied at work. Eventually you'll settle in an equilibrium with mediocre performers getting same mediocre salary. But this seeming "equality" is not necessarily the idealistic optimal point it may seem.

I won't go as far as to say this is human nature. This may just be cultural artifact and conditioning in parts of the world I've lived in. Perhaps there exist cultures where people have more self-awareness and satisfaction with "their lot in life", i.e. their effort/reward ratio; and more allowances and comfort that others make more or less. I can 100% see Iain Banks' Culture operating differently:). Maybe there are enlightened countries where this is already the case... I have yet to live in Scandinavia :P. But not where I'm standing.

(I may be slightly grouchy today... but I stand by the gist of the statement :P )

[SMAAART]

Sooner 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.