Also as a regular fintech worker, I have to get internal approval from my employer for anything I do. Why can government representatives trade willy nilly without any oversight?

If you wrote the rules for yourself, they would probably be more lenient :)

Do you actually "have to"? How would they know if you don't? Basically, is it an honor system?

When I was in that situation, I had to disclose all brokerage accounts to my employer, and authorise the brokers to send copies of the account statements to the employer's compliance department.

20 years ago it used to be the honor system. Now all the records are connected, many make it a requirement of employment to move all accounts into the firm.

Also, it's mandated by the SEC. There are obligations on you, your employer, and (if your broker is in the US) your broker to ask you, and to inform each other.

So it's kind of on the honour system - your broker probably won't ask you for payslips proving you don't work in the industry - but a lot of people are incentivized not to let it happen.

That's true too! Finance sites like Marketwatch and Yahoo have insider transaction logs for each company when you search their ticker symbol [1]. There should be a tab to view "US office holder and their immediate relatives" transaction log page as well listed for each ticker.

[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AAPL/insider-transactions/