> your data

Is it yours though? The employer could probably argue that it's theirs. Devil's advocate: I think it's widely understood that entities can be transparent with their data if they choose, other than NDA scenarios.

Yeah I used to work for the navy. Pay was standardized under the GS pay schedule and anybody could have looked that up. I was fine with that.

In the private sector, your comp is determined by a negotiation undermined by an asymmetric information disparity. HR at a hiring company has way more information around market comp as it is without having your exact current comp when they make an offer.

What I find particularly egregious about this is that management at this company had admonished me that my comp was 'confidential' and that I shouldn't discuss it, while simultaneously selling it to equifax.

Why would that be a widely understood part of the job description? Almost every American teacher, firefighter, planner, street engineer, health inspector, police officer, train conductor, bus driver, along with the managers, office administrative staff, janitors, and groundskeepers that support those activities are public sector employees. What do they have in common that would suggest they deserve less privacy than you do?

Most of these jobs are not special or meaningfully "public". They're just normal jobs for firms that happen to be public bodies. I don't think it's at all obvious that people are knowingly and deliberately making these tradeoffs by working there.