• General_Effort@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    Not quite. Such official documents may be published by the government, but only if provided by law. It doesn’t mean that the data may be used by others.

    EU data protection activists are fighting against such transparency rules. I’m thinking of Noyb’s lawsuit against the Swedish government, in particular. Sweden has a very strong tradition of transparency.

    That German law was explicitly made to criminalize such lists compiled from public data. If the context suggests that the information is meant to enable illegal harm to the people, then it’s criminal to publish the information. In the German understanding, that is fighting Nazis because Nazis create such lists of their enemies.