In the context cited, the consumer's privacy is ALREADY gone. Long gone. Experian and the other credit agencies gather huge amounts of publicly available information, which is reachable by debt collectors, to prospective lenders, prospective employers (and on and on). There is very little about you and me that isn't available on the web.

We may not be enthralled to know how naked we are to inquiring eyes, but it is a fact of life.

I know that your inquiry/comment is about the UK and not the US, but as I would apply it to the US I find no fault with governmental authorities looking at the information that's already spread out there for everyone else to see.

Dave Oesterreich