Sidenote: whether this is appropriate is a completely different discussion.
To me, as someone from a country where this data is considered sensitive, the fact that you can purchase this data is mind-boggling.
To me, as someone from a country where this data is considered sensitive, the fact that you can purchase this data is mind-boggling.
* A list that's available for purchase electronically, used by marketers, you can opt in or out of this list when registering to vote or renewing a registration. I have no idea why anybody would choose to be on this list; when it was last my job to care, the size of the list was falling but not as precipitously as I'd expect.
* The full list, available electronically to a limited set for specified purposes: law enforcement and intelligence for obvious reasons, candidates standing for election in order to send out literature to voters, elected politicians likewise, the Credit Reference Agencies for name + address matching on credit applications, I'm sure there's a few others, but most people don't have this.
The full list also exists on paper for anyone to read, but the law is clear that even if you were interested in painstakingly copying data from the paper records that's illegal unless you already have a purpose for which you'd be able to buy an electronic copy. This allows people to be individually nosy still, which feels proportionate. e.g. "How are fifteen people registered in the two bed cottage next door to me? I should go ask someone what's up with that."
The UK still doesn't have a secret ballot though which is crazy. If we're going to have the technical capability to reverse ballots we should use it OR if we don't want to use it, we should stop marking ballots so that it'd be technically possible to reverse them. Parliament periodically asks witnesses about this, but like the US Congress periodically asking whether ¢1 coins make sense (no, no they don't) it doesn't act on what it gets told.
Also, your name, birthday, and address will never be very private. You give it to so many different people/companies.