i.e. You can probably spot trends like person X spends a huge amount of their pay on nappies and babyfood...probably could do with some additional social help.
Nordic countries probably come closest to said hypothetical but still seems kinda dicey
I won't say one way is better than the other, but it's telling that almost every major IT Security standard that deals with Privacy (absent NIST of course) takes its guidance from the EU.
I understand salaries are already public in Norway. Why shouldn't they be? Unless you can't justify your earnings, for some reason.
I understand the 'big brother!' response to this kind of thing, I'm also squeamish about it. It does rely on a government that is trustworthy and accountable. But I don't think secrecy, paranoia, etc, is beneficial, compared to more openness.
It depends on the area and the people working on it, I also know of good institutions, but I can see, why the so called underclass is sceptical of the common state institutions.
Most help that comes, comes with hard obligations, that mainly keep them down. Give a struggeling person a bunch of paperwork to fill out and he or she will just struggle more. And only once they are down enough, they get a certain label and then they get a more or less competent government helper, putting them totally into dependent state. Most have accepted their state as retarded by then and rarely make it up again.
I did feel kept down at that time.