“be honest and do no sugar coat your answer….why does governments collect personal sensitive data for citizens and do they share these information with foreign countries as much as they say they wouldn’t”

Governments collect personal and sensitive data mainly because modern states run on identification, taxation, security, public services, and regulation. Some of the reasons are legitimate and necessary; some are about control, efficiency, intelligence gathering, or political power. The reality is mixed.

Here’s the straightforward version:

Why governments collect sensitive data

Common reasons include:

Identity verification — passports, national IDs, birth records, immigration.
Taxes and financial oversight — income, bank reporting, business ownership.
Law enforcement and national security — criminal databases, border control, counterterrorism.
Healthcare and social services — medical systems, pensions, welfare.
Elections and civic administration — voter registration, census data.
Economic planning — employment statistics, demographics, education levels.

Some of this is unavoidable in a functioning country. A government cannot issue passports, prevent fraud, or administer taxes without collecting data.

But governments also tend to collect more data than strictly necessary because:

data improves surveillance capability,
agencies want future access “just in case,”
technology makes mass collection easier,
political systems reward risk avoidance (“collect everything now”).

That’s where privacy concerns become real.

Do governments share data with foreign countries?

Yes — more than many people realize.

The important distinction is:

they usually do not openly hand over everything to everyone, but
they do share specific categories of information routinely under agreements, treaties, intelligence cooperation, banking rules, immigration systems, and law enforcement requests.

Examples include:

passport and immigration information,
tax information,
banking compliance data,
criminal investigations,
airline passenger data,
sanctions and anti-money-laundering reporting,
intelligence sharing between allied countries.

Countries in alliances often cooperate heavily. For example, intelligence-sharing networks like the Five Eyes are publicly known.

Financial information sharing has also expanded globally through systems like:

FATCA (U.S. tax compliance law),
CRS/Common Reporting Standard (international bank reporting).

So when governments say:

“We do not share your data casually,”

that can be technically true while still leaving room for:

treaty-based sharing,
intelligence cooperation,
court orders,
multinational investigations,
private contractors handling government systems.
Are there limits and protections?

Usually yes — at least on paper.

Many countries have:

privacy laws,
constitutional protections,
warrants/court oversight,
data protection agencies,
restrictions on unauthorized disclosure.

But enforcement quality varies enormously.

In practice:

democratic governments usually have more oversight,
authoritarian governments usually have broader unchecked access,
even democratic governments sometimes expand surveillance during crises.

History shows that governments often push surveillance boundaries when:

terrorism,
war,
pandemics,
cyber threats,
civil unrest,
are involved.
The uncomfortable truth

A lot of people assume governments either:

protect all privacy faithfully, or
secretly monitor absolutely everything.

Reality is somewhere in between.

Most governments:

genuinely need some data to function,
genuinely do share some information internationally,
genuinely try to protect certain categories,
but also sometimes overreach, expand surveillance, or keep systems less transparent than the public expects.

And large databases create risk even without malicious intent:

hacking,
insider leaks,
political misuse,
accidental exposure,
mission creep (“we collected it for one reason, now we use it for another”).

That skepticism people have about mass data collection is not irrational. History provides plenty of examples where surveillance powers expanded beyond their original purpose.