Can you disappear in surveillance Britain?

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article7096105.ece

by Blish123 • 16 years ago

60 33 16 years ago

women.timesonline.co.uk

z303• 16 years ago

Lots more about the documentary on this metafilter thread

http://www.metafilter.com/91492/Can-a-person-disappear-in-su...

pierrefar• 16 years ago

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

axod11• 16 years 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?

conanite3• 16 years 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?

axod11• 16 years 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.

retube2• 16 years 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??

retube2• 16 years ago

I want to vote you up, but there's no up arrow ?

Nekojoe2• 16 years 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.

axod11• 16 years 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"

Nekojoe2• 16 years 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.

teuobk• 16 years 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• 16 years ago

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

ytilibitapmoc• 16 years 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-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• 16 years ago

You can go ahead and add the movie to your Netflix queue. I certainly have.

http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/Erasing_David/70134394?strack...

watmough• 16 years 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.

axod11• 16 years 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• 16 years 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?

Can you disappear in surveillance Britain?

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