EU ponders public access to Finnish tax records

An article has been published in the online edition of Helsingin Sanomat of today, dealing with the issue of the publicity of tax records in Finland. It may be that my English is so poor, but I frankly understand very little of what the journalist writes, talking of giraffes and similar animals...

Anyway, the little I understand, I don't like it. The article seems to debate on whether publishing tax information is legitim when done for journalistic purposes, as opposed to publishing by having these data available through SMS.

Whatever he (Perttu, thanks to my finnish girlfriend for pointing out that Perttu is a male name) writes the issue is one: tax records MUST NOT be made public WITHOUT the consent of the data owner. He seems to speculate about the use that is done of the data, journalistic purposes or not. Freedom of press (the motivation given by court to keep allowing the sales of the Veropörssi magazine, the one with the tax records listed) must not limit personal privacy.

What I understand well and makes me shake with disgust is this phrase:

If the Court of Justice agrees the view of the Data Protection Ombudsman, Finnish data protection will improve by the breadth of a hair of a giraffe. However, in that case more will be lost in wage equality than is gained in data protection.

So, translating as it's not easy, I had to read it three times, if EU Court of Justice declares obvious something obvious in any civil nation (yes, I want to be cryptic too) data protection in Finland will only improve of a giraffe hair, but we lose wage equality. WTF? And the privacy of the single individual?????

And still he goes on and on:

Checking the tax records is, in practice, the only way that an employee can be sure that he or she is being paid equally to that of his or her fellow workers.

WTF? What forbids my fellow worker to have a second job (taxed anyway at rates so horrible that it's never worth to do one)? How can I sure of what he makes? And why do I need to know what he makes? If he makes more, good that he manages to get that salary. Wage equality must not come before the individual's privacy. What if a criminal checks your tax records? There is a reason why in the whole "Western" world Finland is the only nation to have this circus open.

I sincerely hope that the EU busts the ass of Finland in this matter, better sooner than later.