Maybe if it were just the law enforcement of that area scanning the ship, but when it's every Tom, Dick, and Harry, that's an issue. These are just random engineers though.
Pirates scanned his ship in the early chapters, it can get all the info including cargo. To put it in perspective, this would be like every person you walk past on the street getting all the physical information about you and anything related to your identity. It would be nearly impossible to determine which of them have dubious intentions. I'd suspect all of them.
There is (I mean obviously) a clear difference in technology levels. Today, you can really only read a person's license plate, and then look up any available information online. Or the make and model of their vehicle. If you notice that the vehicle is significantly different than anything available on the market, and your interest is in engineering, you may be inclined to take a closer and more detailed look.
With today's technology, without getting physical, what one can discern about a vehicle is limited. With detailed "scanning" technology it (theoretically) would be possible to create blueprints for the vehicle that you could then study in detail. If your profession is engineering, or you are just very interested in it, and the thing you just "pinged" is unique, you may be more interested in getting a structural analysis of it.
Is it disconcerting? Certainly. Should it be illegal? Only if you believe that looking at someone else's vehicle today, for more than enough time to read the license plate, should also be illegal.
Yes, it is more involved than simply "looking" in today's terms. They are given more details on the vehicle than most people could get without touching (because the inner working are blocked by the vehicle's hood), but even today it is possible to see (at least some of) the cargo of a vehicle even without touching it, simply by peering through the windows, which isn't illegal. One would likely be yelled at for getting too close to, and being too interested in the other person's vehicle, but unless it is on private property you literally cannot stop someone from looking. Disconcerning? Sure. Illegal? No.
I put forward that, should humans ever develop technology to scan things and collect detailed information from them, and especially if we ever have personal space ships, it should definitively NOT be made illegal to use the technology on other ships. They will move far too fast and at far too great a distance for anyone to get any useful information from sight alone. The very thought of getting ANY useful info through eyes alone is insane. And relying on transmission of relevant information has already proven to be dismissable. Just look up any current technology to spoof or otherwise impede accurate collection of "transmitted" information (such as license plates).
It would only be the
level of scanning that should be questionable, and even then only as reportable as someone hovering around a vehicle in today's world. (Depending on location, probably want to get the police involved, but going physical/violent immediately would be the same overreaction as it would now)
Again, wall of text. I know, and I'm sorry.