But he didnt know there was a will and the will doesnt say the value of the estate to know how much I inherited. My girlfriend didnt know I had inherited anything before this so all he had to go on was my name and address. He did a search and found that I had had contact with a solicitor then some how found out the reason I had seen the solicitor, even though I thought there was something called client confidentiality. My guess is there is a computer system that all legal people have which has the details of everyones dealings with solicitors, the reason for this I have no idea. My initial thought is that certainly the data protection act prevents information being given out other than for approved reasons logged with the data protection registrar and I can't see this would fall in to that. The problem is I don't know anything about the computer system to go much further.

Thanks for the feedback it is reassuring that others also think there is something wrong here! I've emailed the law society though when I have done this before they tend to be more on the side of the solicitors, barristers etc than the public. But looking at the ICO website I will ask the solicitor who had my information for their advice, as in my view they should have protected my data better and perhaps I can approach the ICO on this basis. If anyone in the legal profession does know of what search would have been done and any terms of use attached to this, I this would be appreciated. Trying to confront a barrister is not something I will do lightly so I'd like to have as much supporting information as I can as they make a fulltime job of putting their arguments forward of course.

I'm not sure if anyone will know this but you never know! I heard recently that someone had done a check on me. The key points are I was left some money in a will a few months ago and the check that was done found this out due to my dealing with the solicitor. I thought all dealings with solicitors were confidential so was a bit surprised it appeared to be public avaialable even to the amount of money I had inherited. Other things were details of my parents and things I guess are on the electoral register which I guess are public available. The person who did the search was a barrister. Basically the barristers son likes my girlfriend and I guess was hoping to find something to put her off me. I am basically wondering if there is anything I can do as it seems an abuse of position, if nothing else to be able to invade my privacy like this. Does anyone know what search this is that was done and any rules around this? Thanks.