Don't about the UK but in the US there used to be a big privacy problem around people who worked at banks and car dealerships looking up credit reports for non-

Don't about the UK but in the US there used to be a big privacy problem around people who worked at banks and car dealerships looking up credit reports for non-business reasons. Soft inquiries are a way to combat that by making every request to view a person's credit report into a recorded event that the person can see.