

Can you disappear in surveillance Britain? - Blish123
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article7096105.ece

======
Nekojoe
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
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
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
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
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.

~~~
axod
I've had 3 "bounty packs". I found them pretty useful. You get a load of free
stuff to start you off with your newborn, and get to try out stuff.

I remember getting a few free samples of nappies. For us, Huggies were
terrible, and Pampers worked great. It would have been a pain to figure that
out by buying 2 big packs of nappies.

So for me, it was a really useful thing. And Pampers got what they wanted - to
put their product in the hands of people who might want to buy it.

I don't think anyone anywhere would not be aware that freebies/samples are
given out for a reason. And the reason certainly isn't generosity.

Also, personally, I don't much care who has my 'information'. For these sort
of companies they basically have your name and address. Worst they can do is
send round a salesperson.

~~~
anigbrowl
I'm not sure you appreciate just how useful that demographic information is.
They don't just have your name and address, they have that, the quality of
hospital you went to (which in the US, says a lot about you) and the fact of a
birth.

This economic datum alone is good for about 15 years of highly predictable
target marketing. Long after the baby has stopped wetting itself, the data can
be sold to other marketers, who are eager to have it because it's predictable
that the child will need new clothes every year, attend school around age 4,
want toys around birthday and Xmas, and so on and on. It's worth a _lot_ more
than some sample packs of toiletries and baby formula.

~~~
axod
I appreciate how useful it is to them, but them having it doesn't mean I don't
have it. They haven't stolen anything from me, I haven't lost anything, I
don't really care if they have those stats.

------
z303
Lots more about the documentary on this metafilter thread

[http://www.metafilter.com/91492/Can-a-person-disappear-in-
su...](http://www.metafilter.com/91492/Can-a-person-disappear-in-surveillance-
Britain)

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

------
ytilibitapmoc
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...](http://www.simon-cozens.org/content/nhs-records-obscurity-main-means-
security)

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

[http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/Erasing_David/70134394?strack...](http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/Erasing_David/70134394?strackid=2f781f54375ad490_0_srl&strkid=53740340_0_0&trkid=438381)

------
watmough
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.

------
axod
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
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?

------
pierrefar
The series on More4: [http://www.channel4.com/programmes/erasing-
david/episode-gui...](http://www.channel4.com/programmes/erasing-
david/episode-guide/series-1/episode-1)

------
axod
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
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
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.

~~~
weego
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.

~~~
axod
I too had my identity stolen and had the hassle of cleaning my credit history.
But that's a separate problem.

The problem wasn't my privacy, the problem was that I moved out of an address,
some junk mail came for me after I'd left, and so the new resident used my
name to run up some bills.

You can steal identities by simply knowing a name and an address such is the
broken credit check system.

That's not proving that things need to be stored and secured better. It's
showing that credit agencies need to actually use some common sense. (In my
case the fraudulent entries didn't even match my date of birth).

