Held on an unquantifiable number of computers, records and databases, is my address, postcode, telephone number, email address, national insurance number, age, date of birth, and marital status. And that's just the basics.

On several of these databases lies my bank details; account number, sort code, statement histories, loan applications, proof of purchases, monthly salary, withdrawals, deposits and mortgage repayments.

Then there's phone bills; a detailed account of who I call, how long for and at what hour. There are the innumerable companies that have my email address and mobile number despite me never having authorised them to be passed on to third-parties.

Dental records, employment histories, school grades, university applications, library memberships, driving licences, tax returns, benefit forms and passports.

Social-networking websites that 'own' your photos even though you never uploaded them yourself or gave permission for them to be there. Google indexing of every opinion you've ever posted on a forum. ISP monitoring.

Birth certificates, supermarket clubcards, magazine subscriptions, website registrations and gym memberships, Amazon and eBay.

Isn't this all a bit much? I'm in my early-twenties, and I haven't done anything of great significance in the grand scheme of things -- at least not to warrant my name appearing on potentially thousands of databases spread all across the country, or possibly the world.

Is it just me who worries about his, or does anything else find it deeply unsettling that if all these companies and agencies decided to collude against you then they could completely expose you? Because I'm sure there is some phone call you shouldn't have made, or some website that you probably shouldn't have visited, or a school grade that you might have exaggerated on a job application, or some minor criminal offence you committed as a teenager, that you'd really like to keep well-hidden, and which these all these entities have access to.

Okay, it's not quite Stasi-monitored East Germany. They don't know everything about your day-to-day life, but it seems that they do know pretty much everything else.