Lets look at it another way. Almost every organization has to have privacy policies these days. There are penalties for giving out private information. Let's get the GA register away from public access.
Millions of cars are out there and you can't get access to registered owner details, why should every one have access to aircraft records? It's just a left over practice from the past.
If the GA register had never been public there is no way anyone would want it made public today.