6 ms·

Can you disappear in surveillance Britain?

60 points by Blish123 16y ago

z303 16y ago
Lots more about the documentary on this metafilter thread http://www.metafilter.com/91492/Can-a-person-disappear-in-surveillance-Britain http://www.metafilter.com/91492/Can-a-person-disappear-in-su...
pierrefar 16y ago
The series on More4: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/erasing-david/episode-guide/series-1/episode-1 http://www.channel4.com/programmes/erasing-david/episode-gui...
axod 16y ago
This is just hyperbole tripe. Ridiculous. Flagged. The worrying thing is not the 'surveillance' or 'privacy'. It's how obsessed and unhinged this man is, putting ridiculous things before his own family. tl;dr = Man gets obsessed about privacy, Leaves his wife and kids for a fun chase. Detectives find his facebook page, work out where wife is having baby, phone hospital pretend to be him, and when something is wrong with baby they all turn up and detectives get him. WTF does that prove?
- conanite 16y ago
  Why ridiculous? It's the story of a guy who hires two detectives to track him down, his attempts to evade them, and their techniques for catching him. It's an interesting experiment, well worth documenting. He comes across as a bit paranoid, perhaps, but making privacy issues more public is a worthy endeavour, no?
  - axod 16y ago
    No. It's not. "The average UK adult is now registered on more than 700 databases and is caught many times each day by nearly five million CCTV cameras." Is designed to scare people. Even though it's BS. Most of those cameras are firstly in massive cities. Secondly, most of them are simply connected to some dumb VHS recorder that only gets checked if there is some crime. Personally, I think it's more important for him to support his wife and kids rather than running off and pretending to be a spy. Also, first rule of hiding, don't have a pregnant wife or dependents, because hiding will be pretty hard.
    - gaius 16y ago
      He's a filmmaker. This is how he supports his wife and kids.
      - axod 16y ago
        idk. All the article shows me is that this is an unhinged man in need of help.
        gaius 16y ago
        She presumably knew he was a creative artist when she married him, that's probably even why she found him attractive.
        axod 16y ago
        "creative artist" my arse. As Bond became more obsessed, Katie became increasingly annoyed. They argued over filling in a form for Ivy’s nursery. “They can use this data for God knows what!” Bond yelled. “I thought, for God’s sake, no one else worries about this,” Katie remembers. “Why do we have to?” She tried to reassure him: “It’s fine. They’re not going to do anything weird with our data. If some kind of weird government comes in, we’ll opt out.” He wasn’t convinced.
        gaius 16y ago
        Creative types are a bit temperamental, everyone knows that. And that's very naive thing for her to say... Weird governments don't let you just "opt out".
    - weego 16y ago
      This is exactly correct. You only have to look at the criticism of Mi5 not having the resources to track people they knew were potential terrorists when they crossed paths with people they were actively tracking to know that the chances that anything I do all day even being looked at by a human are almost nothing. Also my experience dealing with HMRC shows me even people in the civil service who are paid to know what I'm doing suffer from such data disorganisation and unconnection that I have no fears at all about it's use. I'm far more worried about how it is stored and secured, and also how commercial entities that have power over my status in society (read credit agencies) gather and do not verify data that may, through no fault of my own, affect my life. One of my friends from way back had someone elses credit black list applied to her purely based on them having the same name even though they live in completely different areas of the country.
  - retube 16y ago
    The concept of trying to evade detectives you've hired to track you down is vaguely arresting... but has nothing to do with the surveillance issue he is trying to highlight, as others have pointed out here. To be honest, it sounds really lame, particularly his freaking out and so on, given the entire thing is contrived for a TV show. Plus I would say - wtf disappearing for a month with his wife heavily pregnant. Bullshit "work commitments". What on earth could have prevented them doing it in 3 or 6 months??
    - conanite 16y ago
      In 3 or 6 months his wife has a small baby to deal with. As far as I can tell (I'm not the right gender), babies are easier to deal with while they're still inside.
- retube 16y ago
  I want to vote you up, but there's no up arrow ?
axod 16y ago
Of course if it really was that easy to find people in the UK, then the CSA (Child support agency) would be able to. But they can't. I can't find the stat at the moment, but generally they can't find most absent parents.
- crpatino 16y ago
  That probably means the people tracking parents do not give a sh^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H break much of a sweat, know what I mean?
Nekojoe 16y ago
The part of the nappy company getting your details could be emphasised more. Some people are against supermarket loyalty cards, but the "nappy company" can be even worse. They'll ask you all sorts of questions, and since the parents are all happy about their new baby they'll comply without a second thought. They'll then sell all this data to a data trading company. It's valuable because the nappy company has verified the data, and also having a baby is a major lifestyle change that other companies are keen to use. For example you might need a new car that's family friendly with more space in the back for the kids.
- axod 16y ago
  That's why they always have 1 or 2 checkboxes on anything like that: "Are you happy for us to contact you with special deals etc" "Are you happy for us to pass on your details to other carefully selected partners"
  - Nekojoe 16y ago
    I agree, normally there is an opt out for this. With the nappy company it's sneakier though. If you don't agree to being contacted about special deals etc.., you won't receive the bag full of goodies, which is the only reason you'd agree to give your data to them in the first place.
    - axod 16y ago
      It's a pretty fair trade. You get a bag full of free samples, they get a potential lead which may convert to a full time user of their product. I don't really see any privacy issues with it personally.
      - anigbrowl 16y ago
        I think the point is that there's a bait-and-switch going on: tell us a little about your ______ habits, and we'll give you this free stuff as a thank-you (and in hope you'll keep buying it. OK, no problem with that. But after you've given the info, then it's 'oh you have to let us sell the data to get the stuff', and most of the time they don't just want to sell your anonymous little data points as part of an aggregated statistical picture, but your name and address as well as your customer data. It's not so different from giving out 'free' browser toolbars or smiley collections, except that in the fine print they also claim you've given permission for them to install a browsing monitor and what-all else. And as regards baby products, they're taking advantage of the fact that new parents are usually exhausted and overwhelmed both practically and emotionally - not just for a first baby either, and this doesn't conflict with feeling happy. It's still stressful even if you're thrilled. Carrying out a commercial transaction under the guise of friendly generosity at a time of unusual emotional upheaval is rather unethical. Consider too that not only do they want info about the parents; they're building a marketing profile on the kid that has just been (or even, is about to be) born, and realistically that data footprint is going to live longer than the actual person. In find that creepy. YMMV, but even though I appreciate your point about it being a trade-off, it disturbs me that there's no easy route to finding who has your information and what they store. In many countries you can write and request that information of a company, but there's a lot of companies out there.
teuobk 16y ago
I think that intentional temporary disappearance sounds like a fun challenge. This seems like something we'll be seeing more and more of. No, not the surveillance (though that's probably true), but rather the idea of disappearance as a game. Kind of like hide-and-seek for wealthy adults. Another recent example: Evan Ratliff (of Wired) and his efforts to evade discovery. Maybe an opportunity for a startup? Maybe an idea for a TV show, like Big Brother meets The Amazing Race?
- timthorn 16y ago
  The TV show has already been done - 14 years ago: http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/Wanted http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/Wanted
ytilibitapmoc 16y ago
Well, the U.K. NHS is trying to give everyone yet more access to private data: http://www.simon-cozens.org/content/nhs-records-obscurity-main-means-security http://www.simon-cozens.org/content/nhs-records-obscurity-ma... I keep wondering how long it will be until the people of the U.K. realize whose company they are in (Russia and China), pull their heads out of their @$$, and reverse course.
mildweed 16y ago
You can go ahead and add the movie to your Netflix queue. I certainly have. http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/Erasing_David/70134394?strackid=2f781f54375ad490_0_srl&strkid=53740340_0_0&trkid=438381 http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/Erasing_David/70134394?strack...
watmough 16y ago
Things have changed a bit in the UK obviously. My last contact with the law there was when I parked my car in a bad spot and the local police, 400 yards away from my apartment in Aberdeen, were completely unable to find me. Hilarious. That was 1991 or so.

60 points by Blish123 16y ago

z303 16y ago

Lots more about the documentary on this metafilter thread http://www.metafilter.com/91492/Can-a-person-disappear-in-surveillance-Britain http://www.metafilter.com/91492/Can-a-person-disappear-in-su...

pierrefar 16y ago

The series on More4: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/erasing-david/episode-guide/series-1/episode-1 http://www.channel4.com/programmes/erasing-david/episode-gui...

axod 16y ago

This is just hyperbole tripe. Ridiculous. Flagged. The worrying thing is not the 'surveillance' or 'privacy'. It's how obsessed and unhinged this man is, putting ridiculous things before his own family. tl;dr = Man gets obsessed about privacy, Leaves his wife and kids for a fun chase. Detectives find his facebook page, work out where wife is having baby, phone hospital pretend to be him, and when something is wrong with baby they all turn up and detectives get him. WTF does that prove?

conanite 16y ago
Why ridiculous? It's the story of a guy who hires two detectives to track him down, his attempts to evade them, and their techniques for catching him. It's an interesting experiment, well worth documenting. He comes across as a bit paranoid, perhaps, but making privacy issues more public is a worthy endeavour, no?
- axod 16y ago
  No. It's not. "The average UK adult is now registered on more than 700 databases and is caught many times each day by nearly five million CCTV cameras." Is designed to scare people. Even though it's BS. Most of those cameras are firstly in massive cities. Secondly, most of them are simply connected to some dumb VHS recorder that only gets checked if there is some crime. Personally, I think it's more important for him to support his wife and kids rather than running off and pretending to be a spy. Also, first rule of hiding, don't have a pregnant wife or dependents, because hiding will be pretty hard.
  - gaius 16y ago
    He's a filmmaker. This is how he supports his wife and kids.
    - axod 16y ago
      idk. All the article shows me is that this is an unhinged man in need of help.
      - gaius 16y ago
        She presumably knew he was a creative artist when she married him, that's probably even why she found him attractive.
        axod 16y ago
        "creative artist" my arse. As Bond became more obsessed, Katie became increasingly annoyed. They argued over filling in a form for Ivy’s nursery. “They can use this data for God knows what!” Bond yelled. “I thought, for God’s sake, no one else worries about this,” Katie remembers. “Why do we have to?” She tried to reassure him: “It’s fine. They’re not going to do anything weird with our data. If some kind of weird government comes in, we’ll opt out.” He wasn’t convinced.
        gaius 16y ago
        Creative types are a bit temperamental, everyone knows that. And that's very naive thing for her to say... Weird governments don't let you just "opt out".
  - weego 16y ago
    This is exactly correct. You only have to look at the criticism of Mi5 not having the resources to track people they knew were potential terrorists when they crossed paths with people they were actively tracking to know that the chances that anything I do all day even being looked at by a human are almost nothing. Also my experience dealing with HMRC shows me even people in the civil service who are paid to know what I'm doing suffer from such data disorganisation and unconnection that I have no fears at all about it's use. I'm far more worried about how it is stored and secured, and also how commercial entities that have power over my status in society (read credit agencies) gather and do not verify data that may, through no fault of my own, affect my life. One of my friends from way back had someone elses credit black list applied to her purely based on them having the same name even though they live in completely different areas of the country.
- retube 16y ago
  The concept of trying to evade detectives you've hired to track you down is vaguely arresting... but has nothing to do with the surveillance issue he is trying to highlight, as others have pointed out here. To be honest, it sounds really lame, particularly his freaking out and so on, given the entire thing is contrived for a TV show. Plus I would say - wtf disappearing for a month with his wife heavily pregnant. Bullshit "work commitments". What on earth could have prevented them doing it in 3 or 6 months??
  - conanite 16y ago
    In 3 or 6 months his wife has a small baby to deal with. As far as I can tell (I'm not the right gender), babies are easier to deal with while they're still inside.
retube 16y ago
I want to vote you up, but there's no up arrow ?

axod 16y ago

Of course if it really was that easy to find people in the UK, then the CSA (Child support agency) would be able to. But they can't. I can't find the stat at the moment, but generally they can't find most absent parents.

crpatino 16y ago
That probably means the people tracking parents do not give a sh^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H break much of a sweat, know what I mean?

Nekojoe 16y ago

The part of the nappy company getting your details could be emphasised more. Some people are against supermarket loyalty cards, but the "nappy company" can be even worse. They'll ask you all sorts of questions, and since the parents are all happy about their new baby they'll comply without a second thought. They'll then sell all this data to a data trading company. It's valuable because the nappy company has verified the data, and also having a baby is a major lifestyle change that other companies are keen to use. For example you might need a new car that's family friendly with more space in the back for the kids.

axod 16y ago
That's why they always have 1 or 2 checkboxes on anything like that: "Are you happy for us to contact you with special deals etc" "Are you happy for us to pass on your details to other carefully selected partners"
- Nekojoe 16y ago
  I agree, normally there is an opt out for this. With the nappy company it's sneakier though. If you don't agree to being contacted about special deals etc.., you won't receive the bag full of goodies, which is the only reason you'd agree to give your data to them in the first place.
  - axod 16y ago
    It's a pretty fair trade. You get a bag full of free samples, they get a potential lead which may convert to a full time user of their product. I don't really see any privacy issues with it personally.
    - anigbrowl 16y ago
      I think the point is that there's a bait-and-switch going on: tell us a little about your ______ habits, and we'll give you this free stuff as a thank-you (and in hope you'll keep buying it. OK, no problem with that. But after you've given the info, then it's 'oh you have to let us sell the data to get the stuff', and most of the time they don't just want to sell your anonymous little data points as part of an aggregated statistical picture, but your name and address as well as your customer data. It's not so different from giving out 'free' browser toolbars or smiley collections, except that in the fine print they also claim you've given permission for them to install a browsing monitor and what-all else. And as regards baby products, they're taking advantage of the fact that new parents are usually exhausted and overwhelmed both practically and emotionally - not just for a first baby either, and this doesn't conflict with feeling happy. It's still stressful even if you're thrilled. Carrying out a commercial transaction under the guise of friendly generosity at a time of unusual emotional upheaval is rather unethical. Consider too that not only do they want info about the parents; they're building a marketing profile on the kid that has just been (or even, is about to be) born, and realistically that data footprint is going to live longer than the actual person. In find that creepy. YMMV, but even though I appreciate your point about it being a trade-off, it disturbs me that there's no easy route to finding who has your information and what they store. In many countries you can write and request that information of a company, but there's a lot of companies out there.

teuobk 16y ago

I think that intentional temporary disappearance sounds like a fun challenge. This seems like something we'll be seeing more and more of. No, not the surveillance (though that's probably true), but rather the idea of disappearance as a game. Kind of like hide-and-seek for wealthy adults. Another recent example: Evan Ratliff (of Wired) and his efforts to evade discovery. Maybe an opportunity for a startup? Maybe an idea for a TV show, like Big Brother meets The Amazing Race?

timthorn 16y ago
The TV show has already been done - 14 years ago: http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/Wanted http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/Wanted

ytilibitapmoc 16y ago

Well, the U.K. NHS is trying to give everyone yet more access to private data: http://www.simon-cozens.org/content/nhs-records-obscurity-main-means-security http://www.simon-cozens.org/content/nhs-records-obscurity-ma... I keep wondering how long it will be until the people of the U.K. realize whose company they are in (Russia and China), pull their heads out of their @$$, and reverse course.

mildweed 16y ago

You can go ahead and add the movie to your Netflix queue. I certainly have. http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/Erasing_David/70134394?strackid=2f781f54375ad490_0_srl&strkid=53740340_0_0&trkid=438381 http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/Erasing_David/70134394?strack...

watmough 16y ago

Things have changed a bit in the UK obviously. My last contact with the law there was when I parked my car in a bad spot and the local police, 400 yards away from my apartment in Aberdeen, were completely unable to find me. Hilarious. That was 1991 or so.