Kuchan:
I basically agree with all of your points, especially on being able to pass without fundamental knowledge. Besides if you memorize 10,000 questions you are bound to know something
I mentioned the "scandal" merely to alert the unwary (in all regions) to be cautious since at least in some areas there is a movement towards action on question banks in many fields.
As to copyright it does not take exact wording to infringe, otherwise one could freely re-publish a lot of work by randomly tweaking words and sentence order etc, although I must admit that a lot of technical writing reads as though that has already been done.
Apparently the Doctor "study groups" did an amazingly accurate job by merging multiple partialy recalled questions no need for photographic memory.
As to data protection at least in the USA a subpoena trumps privacy laws.