They're retaining the data illegally.
No one really seems to care if anything is illegal anymore, as long as it isn't a "classic" crime like assault, robbery, murder, drugs, or the like. The notion of illegality is as benign and dead as ever. Now it seems, laws are merely for retaining and furthering the authoritative reach of those in power, not as a code by which we determine what constitutes a crime.
I've had money stolen by Fortune 500 companies and those employees laugh at me after I read the applicable laws aloud to them, even though they were clearly -- even personally -- in violation. It's all just a joke, a game. Of course, they win, because it wasn't enough dollars and cents to coerce me into jumping through all the necessary hoops and sending of all the paperwork to the various & mysterious government entities whom I would need to reach out to in order to even have "THE LAW" enforced.
Nearly ten years ago, I was searched every single day before class my senior year. I dropped out because they wouldn't stop and I was sick of it. No due process. There were no charges, no arrest, no evidence -- nothing. Just some overzealous police officer saying I did something (I didn't), and that being enough. The police are the authorities on reality now, I suppose. Be searched, or be denied an education! No one cared at the school, the local school board, the state department of education, the ACLU, the attorney general's office -- whoever I reached out to. Couldn't even find any money-grubbing lawyers to take on the district. I was only seventeen, a definite no one. Why should they care? There are no consequences if they don't.
There, in the corner of a locked bathroom, lay the United States Constitution trampled, battered, abused, and with a page upturned to the fourth amendment, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons
So, the law is dead. It's because nobody cares. No one is individually accountable. Nothing matters as long as you can have your TV dinner in front of a friendly glowing screen made just to keep your empty mind company; crawl under your made-in-China blanket at night; and sidle up to that wife of yours you met staring down the packets of pet niblets at the grocery store in the dog food aisle.
Take away a person's false sense of security and all of the comforts of modernity, perhaps they'll have time or be more inclined to think about trivial, meaningless things such as "sense-makery" and "justice."
I really hope that somebody with deep pockets
I just wanted to say that it really makes me sad to know that this is what it has all come down to.
Work continues in this area. -- DEC's SPR-Answering-Automaton