
Startup offers landlords continuous, deep surveillance of tenants' social media - prawn
http://boingboing.net/2016/06/09/uk-startup-offers-landlords-co.html
======
kristianc
Services like these are just the start. It's not going to be too long before
background social media checks such as these get absorbed into your Experian
credit report and become part of the general information a landlord or anyone
else has on you. You won't even know about it or have any recourse if the
algorithm gets it wrong.

China is already trialling a 'Social Credit' system that aims to achieve
similar. The only difference between China and the West is that as an
authoritarian state they can be more brazen about it.

Sadly, it being Britain, there will always be a fair share of people willing
to go along with it because they 'probably know what they're doing' and the
'innocent have nothing to hide.'

~~~
Houshalter
I'm sure this is an incredibly unpopular opinion here, but I really believe
that these things can be a net good. At least in some cases, like your example
of credit checking.

I recall a startup nonprofit that gave loans to people in third world
countries. The main problem was detecting fraud, and the only tool they had
was checking social media profiles. Clearly this is a good thing if it
maximizes the number of people who get loans. Even if a few good people get
accidentally filtered, there is a net benefit. And yet this was really
controversial in the HN comments.

There is also a net benefit to having more accurate predictions on who will
make a good tenant. Rent is the largest cost of living for the poor in many
places, and anything that helps reduce that cost is a net benefit.

Yet people react based on emotions. If a single false positive out of millions
causes someone to be worse off, it's considered unfair and bad. Even if the
net utility is positive and more people benefit than are hurt. It also rests
on some underlying assumption that the existing system is perfectly fair,
which is obviously false. Human's are way more biased at judging than
algorithms. Bad loans and bad tenants have to be paid for by everyone else,
which is hardly fair either.

Social Credit has nothing to do with it. The goal of social credit is to
discourage dissent. Whereas credit rating agencies don't care what your
political opinions are, just how likely you are to pay your bills.

~~~
a3_nm
You are suggesting that a background check system is doing a net good if more
people benefit than are hurt.

The problem is that a system like this would strongly encourage _all_ people,
good or bad, to avoid doing things that the system could object to. It's not
enough to count the actual false positives, you have to take this loss of
freedom into account as well. I don't think it's a good idea to have people
self-censor because they worry how a surveillance algorithm will react to what
they do. (The same way that you think twice, nowadays, about using problematic
keywords or expressing a dangerously controversial opinion in a text message
to a friend.)

~~~
louthy
Exactly. This is exactly why systems like this pose such a threat. And what
about the few that decide to say "Fuck the system!", well they become a social
underclass - they can't get loans, mortgages, jobs, etc. It's a very slippery
slope. Everyone should be entitled to a private life. And not everybody's
private life would chime well with 'the establishment'.

I could imagine myself falling foul of this because I produce music. It
wouldn't take long on my facebook page to see that, so if a landlord could
mine that information then I'd be unlikely to get a tenancy based on my
potential to be a nuisance to my neighbours.

~~~
visarga
You gotta be a model FB citizen to rent or loan. FB's got it made, nobody can
ignore them any more, even if they want to.

------
walrus01
That is really, really creepy. I will not pay money to or enter into any sort
of business relationship with a real estate firm that wants to be on my
Facebook 'friends' list.

~~~
etrautmann
So what can we collectively do to ensure that businesses like this fail, fail
big, and fail publicly?

~~~
daviross
Note who works for/with them and remember that if you're ever in a hiring
position (or able to influence hiring)?

Since the people working to put this together clearly don't have the ethical
sense to not-make this, at least they might think twice if there's enough
understanding that producing flat-out evil might hurt their career prospects.

~~~
vintermann
If society collectively decided to refuse them service for making such an
invasive service, it's not as if they can complain.

------
DoubleGlazing
For my current job (banking software development) I had to undergo a
background check. In addition to the usual work and address history stuff I
was also asked for all my social media account details, to which I answered
"N/A". I don't want to lie and said I had none, instead I just went with N/A
as I felt my social media presence was not applicable to the background check.
I have a lot of personal info and pictures of my children on my facebook
profile and that is no ones business but for me and my family.

The background check company got back to me with a list of social media
account handles they had found, some were mind, some weren't. They told me
that they would be submitting this list to my employer stating that I lied
about my social media accounts. I responded by telling them that if they did
they would be submitting incorrect information about me and I could take
action using the Data Protection Act.

I expected to fail the check, but somehow I passed and got the job.

The takeaway from this is that so long as you refuse to discuss your social
media accounts and don't use your real picture as a profile picture, don't
have a really unusual name and keep everything locked down and private then
how can they prove otherwise?

~~~
codeisawesome
They can't prove, but they Know. They also often Think they Know, and this
will cause unexpected (from your perspective) repercussions.

~~~
DoubleGlazing
But what this company is doing is inherently dangerous for itself. The UK Data
Protection Act is pretty darn strict about personal data and the Information
Commissioner can and frequently does levy hefty fines for mistakes and
breaches.

So lets just say I tell them that I have no social media presence and they dig
up some accounts and tell the landlord I lied. Well, they have to justify
their claim, they have to be able to conclusively prove it is mine. If they
get anything wrong then all it takes is a complaint to the Information
Commissioner stating this company is holding, processing and passing on
inaccurate data about me to give them a little shock. A few too many complains
would then probably trigger a severe audit by the commissioner.

Looking at it from a wider perspective. How are they processing and protecting
information in general. How do they protect all the data they harvest from
your social accounts? Are staff able to share the info for fun? is there
access logging? How secure are their PCs? What do they do with your data after
your tenancy ends? This is the sort of stuff a business like this cant afford
to make mistakes with. If they do and people complain in big enough numbers it
could negatively impact their business.

It's also worth noting that where religion, sexuality or health data is
involved things get a little bit more serious as regards the DPA.

If I were dealing this company I would be quite happy to act in manner which
would let them dig their own grave even if it impacted me.

------
jdimov10
Dear HN Monkeys,

You're cracking me up. You can not be pro-technology and pro-privacy at the
same time - these things are mutually exclusive almost by definition. Pick a
side already and stop whining. (Aaand here's a tip: the winning side in this
will always be technology. Yes, that very same technology that you help create
on a daily basis. )

~~~
codeisawesome
I want to try raising a HN admin flag on you - but your voice needs to be
heard, you are obviously writing what you believe is right. There are likely
many others just like yourself.

First, the obvious; Public Key Cryptography, HTTPs, Digital Encryption
Algorithms and their implementations are all TECHNOLOGY and there is a non-
trivial number of us HN Monkeys involved in building them as well (I _wish_ I
was one, not just yet).

Next. I get your concern. I really do, and I share it. The problem you're
referring to is often incorrectly attributed to the proliferation of
technology alone - but I think it's a problem of the free market. It's a
problem of the commoditisation of Human Attention and Human Data in the quest
for ever higher, ever better profits. This is not a new problem, rapacious and
horrible entities have been born out of this. My blood boils when I see ads
for fertiliser from DuPont on Indian TV. Yes, they're now advertising again as
if Bhopal never happened. But hey, profits.

So your anger is misdirected. Please use it as fuel instead to try and build
an alternate system. To try and think of ways in which the innate, inescapable
human need for increasing individual rewards (today these rewards are
expressed in the currencies of Money and Political Power), without
compromising the needs of - well - _everyone else_. We need more thinkers and
thinking. It's what humans do BEST.

------
liw
If landlords and letting agents and real-estate agents do this, should not
tenants do it too? Could we have a service where a tenant gets a "creepiness
report" on a potential landlord/agent?

Actually, probably better not. Escalating mutual destruction scenarios are not
a useful long-term strategy.

------
etrautmann
This is exactly the dystopia we're willfully pushing ourselves towards. What a
nightmare

~~~
visarga
This application is trivial compared to what NSA probably does. They surely
have us all profiled, they know our interests and friends. It's very dangerous
if they decide to impact on undesirables. These logs could even be used in the
future based on the interests of those in power. Not even Eastern Europe in
the height of Communism was able to have such detailed, deeply insightful
information on every person.

------
jkot
> _making tenancy unbearably awful has the additional benefit of encouraging
> people to do everything -- anything -- to become home-owners_

There is other option: leave. Prague and other cities have many foreigners
from UK.

~~~
ddebernardy
And it's quite unfortunate for them that the UK might vote for a Brexit,
without them necessarily being able to chime in. We recently met UK retirees
in Spain who were deeply worried. They had not lived in the UK for over 15
years so weren't eligible to vote for or against. And yet their life situation
was directly affected by the outcome: If the Brexit occurred, they'd end up
unable to afford local healthcare, and would end up needing to return back
north.

~~~
dazc
"If the Brexit occurred, they'd end up unable to afford local healthcare, and
would end up needing to return back north."

There is already a reciprocal agreement for healthcare and no reason to
suppose it would end. Don't forget there are many Spanish people living and
working in the UK right now.

~~~
pjc50
Given the extent to which Brexit campaigners talk about ending immigration, I
don't think it's safe to assume that. After all, deporting all the Spanish
people living in the UK would be _great_ for the net migration statistics. And
cause total chaos, but that doesn't seem to have registered with the Leave
campaign.

~~~
dazc
Is anyone seriously considering deporting all the Spanish people?

~~~
pjc50
I'm not sure if they've _considered_ it, but it's the logical outcome of the
change. They're not UK nationals and they don't have any kind of visa or leave
to remain - _because_ of the EU rules. So if the rules were changed to require
visas for EU nationals, what then? Make everyone apply for leave to remain? Do
nothing, and watch as people realise that although they can stay in the UK if
they ever leave it to visit e.g. Spain they're not allowed back in at the
border?

So given e.g.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11876453](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11876453)
, what happens?

~~~
dazc
It is going to be complicated but I don't think it's going to be such a big
problem? There will be lots of time to find workable arrangements, it's not
like everything changes overnight.

In the case of Spain and the UK there are lots of reasons to maintain a good
working relationship.

Of course it may not work out that way but, going back to the original point,
anyone who left the UK 15 years ago had to be aware there may be problems
further down the line?

------
codeisawesome
A Decentralised Web is quickly becoming one of Humanity's most urgent needs.

------
kerrsclyde
I wonder what approach Facebook will take to services such as this?

It could be a huge source of revenue for them, or they could decide this would
damaged confidence in their service and discourage (my instinct says the
latter).

------
meeper16
This is exactly why facebook will fail.

~~~
brezelgoring
I doubt so, big ones such as facebook or google can dedicate themselves to be
big umbrella after their main products lose direction/public/profit/all-of-
the-above. Anyhow, as much as I'd love to see social media die out I am sure
it will never happen

~~~
loxs
Yeah, maybe Facebook won't fail as a company, or at least not soon. But I can
get OP's argument. I can see it stop being a cool thing people use to connect
to their friends. Once a viable alternative is available.

------
iofj
They can have that. I have thousands of friends, and essentially zero
information on Facebook, good luck even filtering out my real friends from the
Farmville and Mafia Wars (never seriously played, those games are in there
exactly because they obfuscate real acquintances).

I've also got real social media accounts that I actually use and that are
under a fake name and I regularly verify that obvious google searches don't
find them.

You can use google alerts to automate this.

~~~
vintermann
For all you know, they penalize people for not being oversharers.

~~~
visarga
> friends from the Farmville and Mafia Wars

Or they find some objectionable friend in his list, by random chance.

------
dfraser992
It's a logical idea.... given today's world and the nature of society /
capitalism at this point in time. I am writing an essay "On The Internet, You
Should Pretend To Be A Dog". The same basic idea of strip mining a person's
social media presence (along with whatever databases of information is handy)
and machine learning the heck out of it to figure out sources of information
or specific starting points for cracking your passwords (assuming you are one
of the subset who base your password on personal information - how many non-IT
people do that? - and don't bother paying attention to all the advice out
there)

Really it's an essay about good password policies, e.g. for Grandma who thinks
her cat's name spelled backwards is hard to guess... yet posts all over
Facebook about Meowie.

Considering Mark Zuckerberg didn't bother to use LastPass or memorize a simple
sort of random string of characters...

