That's kind of how it worked before everything was readily available online. There was all kinds of information about you available in the public record, but if your neighbors wanted it they had to go to the offices of whatever government agency held the information and get it from an actual physical record on paper or microfiche.
The meant you had reasonable privacy from curious and nosy neighbors and coworkers, but if someone actually had an important enough reason to need your information to justify the legwork or the expense to hire someone else to do the legwork they could get it.
The meant you had reasonable privacy from curious and nosy neighbors and coworkers, but if someone actually had an important enough reason to need your information to justify the legwork or the expense to hire someone else to do the legwork they could get it.