Rsync Backups And Security

Rsync seems to be popular as a backup solution, so I thought I give it a look myself. However, after looking for a while I think it is lacking in either (1) usability or (2) security for backups.

Lets use a backup of /home for example:

(1) To make the transfer secure I'd use rsync over ssh. Backup works great - untill you have to restore. Restore works only partially, because all the files now have the user/group id of the user on the backup server (even if the restore is run as root). You'd have to chown all the individual users dirs, permission files....error prone and a lot of manual work --> not good.

(2) Running rsync in daemon mode on the remote server preserves uid/gid and permissions. Restoring works like a charm when run as root. But, hey, now every 13 year old with some knowledge and a packet sniffer can write down your data unencrypted. They just need to look for -lets say- db-info in php files etc and suddenly have access to your customer base or whatever you store.... Even worse if you transfer db dumps or other sensitive data. So it is not safe to use --> not good.

Is there a way to secure the transfer or keep uid/gid info intact?
And how do all the backup providers handle the issue? (This one here claims rsync is secure.)
Or is there another way to fix the problem - restoring uid/gid and secure transfer for backups.