What’s your opinion about so-called "sunshine lists"? In some jurisdictions, like Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador, the law states that the names and salaries of provincial public servants making more than $100,000 a year automatically get published. I think the whole issue is ripe for controversy — especially when you see errors being made, as was the case this past week in St. John’s.

Federally, the policy is to never disclose the exact salary made by an employee but rather the salary "range" associated with the position the employee occupies. Is that sufficient transparency? Do we really need to know the names and exact salaries of the top earners?

And why the $100,000 mark? Seems kind of arbitrary to me. I guess if I were a public servant in one of the disclosing provinces, I’d want to make exactly $99,999.99.

The whole issue has been around in freedom of information and right to privacy circles for as long as I can remember. I guess it won’t ever go away, but hopefully data breaches like the one out east don’t happen ever again.

Let me know if you have thoughts on this issue and others, even in these slightly slower and typically less newsworthy summer months. I would like to hear from you about what privacy issues are top of mind these days.