It could just be a technique to convince you it's perfectly normal to give up the data. I wouldn't be surprised if many people would fall for such a thing.
That is of course possibe. I highly think that most companies fall for it. If you speak with someone of a state agency, you always feel like they are used to get it. Some of them are actually surprised and openly disappointed when you refuse to hand over.
What wonders me the most is, that most of the time they won't go down the legal way. Instead they just seem to do their job without the data as well afterwards. So what was the point in requesting the data in the beginning?
