When I download a list to Excel, it uses the user who is logged onto the network instead of the user logged onto the SharePoint site.
If I log onto the network and then change my user id in SharePoint, when downloading a list to Excel, it uses my network id instead of the SharePoint user.
Problem being if the user logs onto a site, they may not see items in a list but if they download the list to Excel, they can see all items.
More testing shows that the Excel download ignores SharePoint permissions altogether! All records are downloaded regardless of whether or not an individual has access to the item.