Say an ex finds the new address of a former partner then goes around and shoots them dead.
BTW I am not being hyperbolic here there was a case where this happened when I worked for BT - someone as a favor looked someone's new address up for a friend which resulted in a murder.
The scenario you propose is possible through using Google, and/or many other services that collate public records of people's names and addresses. Try Googling your name and one of your cities of residence some time.
> someone as a favor looked someone's new address up for a friend which resulted in a murder.
A government employee who looks up someone's address for a friend is not covered by FOI laws. Just as FOI doesn't protect cops who use the DMV database to look up other cops they like/hate:
FOI is a law mandating these public records be provided on request -- with various exemptions and allowances for redacting information that could be reasonably seen as a violation of privacy. It's not about being "somehow better", because legislators have deemed that bureaucrats cannot be trusted to decide whether transparency is a good thing.
Consider the example you brought up -- it is against the law for a state employee to send a friend that kind of information, and I imagine that that law exists because politicians feared that kind of murderer scenario. How exactly does that murderer use a cache of email metadata and redacted messages to go after his victim?
BTW I am not being hyperbolic here there was a case where this happened when I worked for BT - someone as a favor looked someone's new address up for a friend which resulted in a murder.