When one reads about this sort of thing, one really does wonder why our lords and masters find it so difficult to comprehend that we are so disengaged from the political process. It is a classic case (pace MPs' pension arrangements, salaries/expenses, &c) of them locking themselves in their ivory towers and assuming that the (idiot) general public can be subject to the full force of the law (with all its foibles, failings and flaws) while they sail blithely above it! So why should the security of the personal data of the general masses be less robust than that of anyone who lays claim to so-called 'celebrity' status? As Mark Wallace of the Taxpayers' Alliance says, it "is a completely unacceptable double standard." Bear in mind too that the same sort of procedure is built in to the ContactPoint database - as I understand it, the personal details of the chidren of parents accorded 'celebrity' status are afforded similar 'extra security measures' on the database.
In fact, in statutory terms, these sorts of arrangements could well be challengeable on the basis of hybridity. There is a general presumption that the law should treat all citizens as equal and that putative special categories of individuals should not be singled out for preferential treatment under it, as seems to be the case here. That said, I'm uncertain what the appropriate means of redress would be in these circumstances.
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