British Startup Strip Mines Renters' Private Social Media For Landlords (washingtonpost.com) 371
Rick Zeman writes: Creepy British startup Score Assured has brought the power of "big data" to plumb new depths. In order to rent from landlords who use their services, potential renters are "...required to grant it full access to your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and/or Instagram profiles. From there, Tenant Assured scrapes your site activity, including entire conversation threads and private messages; runs it through natural language processing and other analytic software; and finally, spits out a report that catalogs everything from your personality to your 'financial stress level.'" This "stress level" is a deep dive to (allegedly) determine whether the potential renter will pay their bills using vague indicators like "online retail social logins and frequency of social logins used for leisure activities." To make it worse, the company turns over to the landlords' indicators that the landlords aren't legally allowed to consider (age, race, pregnancy status), counting on the landlords to "do the right thing." As if this isn't abusive enough, the candidates are not allowed to see nor challenge their report, unlike with credit reports. Landlords first, employers next...and then? As the co-founder says, "People will give up their privacy to get something they want" and, evidently, that includes a place to live and a job. In late May, an apartment building in Salt Lake City told tenants living in the complex to "like" its Facebook page or they will be in breach of their lease.
Not normal (Score:5, Insightful)
“If you’re living a normal life,” Thornhill reassures me, “then, frankly, you have nothing to worry about.”"
The definition of "normal" is not for this company, or my landlord, to decide.
"Tenant Assured doesn’t give users any way to view their ratings or dispute misleading data."
I think Tenant Assured might find that European law has quite a different view on that.
But I am happy to create an empty Facebook profile and share it with my landlord. I'll even put a post up there about paying my bills on time, and getting an early night. No other data in there? I'm sorry, I don't use Facebook that much, and it's not compulsory to use Twitter, so I don't have anything to share with you there.
Re:Not normal (Score:5, Insightful)
So how long a company will stay afloat whose business it is to get people to violate contracts?
Re:Not normal (Score:5, Insightful)
>I think Tenant Assured might find that European law has quite a different view on that.
Well it seems rather a lot of British people would love to get European Law to cease mattering in the UK - and I am willing to bet this company and many others like them are really hoping to just avoid prosecution long enough for the referendum to happen and legalize their business. Afterwards, the picture changes, they can actually have laws made to mandate people use them "The landlord protection act of 2017" or some shit because all they would need to do is bribe some David Cameron cronies, a group of people who are imminently bribable and and rather cheaper than those Belgians.
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Sod "european law", Britains Data Protection Act already makes this an issue and would continue to do so even in the event of a Leave vote in two weeks time.
Re:Not normal (Score:4, Informative)
The original UK Data Protection Act pre-dates the EU Data Protection Directive by over a decade.
The UK pushed this standardisation through the EU.
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I don't want to start some huge side discussion about the EU referendum here, but I'll just mention that the UK's own data protection legislation already covers subject access requests and rights to correct data that is wrong. There is no particular reason to expect that to change whatever the referendum result later this month turns out to be. Even if we vote to leave, it will surely be a few years before things get separated out and any major changes to the legal system get made, as the government will be
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I quite like having more than 10 days holiday a year.
Who doesn't like having a free lunch? The problem is that other people pay for your holidays through higher costs, unemployment, and transfer of business to other countries.
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Except Britain suffers none of those things because it's the world's 5th largest economy, and the fastest growing developed economy in the world over the last two years.
Countries in Europe such as Norway have even higher average levels of leave than us, and produce even more per-person than we do.
The idea that reasonable levels of annual leave somehow cause harm to an economy is demonstrably false.
Re:Not normal (Score:4, Interesting)
The definition of "normal" is not for this company, or my landlord, to decide.
Yeah, this is extremely chilling.
There are plenty of pictures of me shared all around from various concerts where I've stumbled around in drunken stupors generally being a filthy animal, wearing my finest heavy metal studded/patched denim vest getup. In fact that's probably 90% of what's on my Facebook account, I mostly use it to keep track of who's going to which events.
But I don't bring any of that shit home with me, that's absolutely none of my landlord's business. As far as he's concerned, I have a normal 9-5 job in IT, I'm a member of the board at my apartment complex and I participate in all the social and DIY activities that go on. And that's all he should be concerned about.
Now, luckily I own my apartment instead of renting it, so that simplifies things a lot. But I would honestly rather live in a damn cardboard box than put myself through the complete invasion of privacy that Score Assured provides.
Probably Illegal (Score:5, Informative)
Wow. I'm not on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram, but I do have a twitter account. Which I only use for following porn stars and for trolling. Guess I won't be renting via any agency that uses this service ;).
In all honesty, I highly doubt this will stand up. In connection with employers asking for social media passwords of employees;
A spokesman for the ICO [Information Commissioner's Office] said: "The UK Data Protection Act clearly says that organisations shouldn't hold excessive information about individuals, and it's questionable why they would need that information in the first place." [...] "In the UK, however, it would potentially put employers in breach of the Data Protection Act because it would constitute "excessive" information about an individual, the ICO indicated. "We would have very serious concerns if this practice was to become the norm in the UK," (article [theguardian.com]).
If that's true for employers, I'd say it's way more true for landlords and letting agencies, so I'd expect the ICO to have a few things to say on this. Seems like a probable violation of the Data Protection Act.
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There's no "seems" about it. DPA applies to anybody with data about anybody else. Yes, this includes the authorities, but with exemptions because trrism etc.
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Re:Probably Illegal (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, simply put, what this organisation is claiming to do is illegal, however, judging by the amount of Lorem Ipsum on the site, the lack of any pricing et. al. I think it's highly likely that this whole thing is a scam, or just a snake oil peddler.
I work in the fraud/credit industry and can categorically state that you cannot simply just do what these people are claiming to do without undergoing serious compliance efforts. First and foremost is the fact that they're engaging in financial services by including credit risk worthiness, and this would require them to register with the UK's Financial Conduct Authority, however there is no registration at the address on the website as a financial services company:
https://register.fca.org.uk/sh... [fca.org.uk]
This is despite the fact that they MUST acquire permission to operate in this industry from the FCA and undergo necessary compliance checks, see here:
https://www.the-fca.org.uk/aut... [the-fca.org.uk]
The relevant listing is "providing credit information services".
The company is however genuinely registered so isn't a complete hoax:
https://beta.companieshouse.go... [companieshouse.gov.uk]
Beyond the financial aspect of professing to evaluate people's financial worthiness amongst other criteria the amount of detail they're collecting would appear to place them in clear breach of the data protection act in general also.
In recent years the reality is that there is actually a lot of oversight in the UK of companies providing financial services, in large part as a result of the excesses of the 00s and the mis-selling, the financial crisis et. al., the predatory payday loans companies that profited from people etc. For precisely this reason you cannot simply start a company and start bandying about financial data like credit risk as these guys profess to with absolutely no oversight.
Anyone in their right mind would steer clear of this company both as an investor, and as a customer. Again, if it is doing what it says it is doing, then it is operating outside the law.
Lorem Ipsum (Score:5, Insightful)
Has this startup started up?? (or is it just crap at rendering itself in Chrome?) - to quote it's website: Clever Tenant Referencing "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vestibulum at consectetur sem, eget tempus lacus. Curabitur at cursus est. Suspendisse lectus lorem, porttitor sodales porttitor ac, dapibus eu lorem. Nullam in sodales dolor."
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& the video from their recruitment sister company could do with a bit of work... https://vimeo.com/163066774 [vimeo.com]
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https://www.google.co.uk/maps/... [google.co.uk]
Wonder if theres 2 guys in that garage!
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The Term "Toadying Swine" Seems Insufficient (Score:4, Insightful)
We might need to invent new insults for these bootlickers. And that's what they really are: Bootlickers. They're facilitating the worst sort of landlord and employer abuse to grub some money for themselves. "Swine" does not seem a strong enough word.
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>Bootlickers
Only if you have a very strong Canadian accent.
What's next? (Score:2)
To rent this flat you must own an Amazon Echo and grant us access to everything you've said to Alexa?
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The issue here, is one of Fair Housing Laws. Can't speak to .uk. but in the US:
The Federal Fair Housing Acts (42 U.S. Code 3601-3619) prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, age, familial status (having children), and physical or mental disability (including alcoholism and past drug addiction). In addition, many states and cities also prohibit discrimination based on marital status, gender identity, and sexual orientation. [nolo.com]
A landlord may reject you for poor
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Note, please, that Social Media are not among the allowable categories. . . at least in .us
Whatabout Landlords (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Whatabout Landlords (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Whatabout Landlords (Score:5, Informative)
You can find many property management companies and related businesses on Yelp and other reviews. They are usually also covered in news sources, you can find out past and current lawsuits against them, and get information about their financials. So, you actually have a lot of sources of information.
Furthermore, the reason landlords have become very cautious is because (1) they are letting you use something valuable and you can do a lot of damage to it, and (2) laws in many places make it difficult to evict renters even when they misbehave.
Re:Whatabout Landlords (Score:4, Informative)
Then don't rent from a landlord whose management company is 6 months old. A good landlord will usually be using a management company that's been around for decades, and has a long track history. A good landlord will be successful enough that he has multiple properties, and finds it easier to hire a management company to handle the day-to-day operations. If the landlord is running it all himself, he's more likely to own just the one property, which increases the risk to the tenant of getting a looney.
Your and OP's statements are not contradictory. Both landlords and tenants need to be cautious about whom they get into a contract with. Ideally, the realtors who show the properties would do the legwork of background checks on both the landlord and the prospective tenant, since they're the ones in the best position to build up a database of landlord and tenant turnover history. But since that industry is a sham monopoly (uniform pricing) which charges a huge amount disproportionate to services provided, it's fallen upon the landlords and tenants to gather that information themselves.
OP is spot-on that landlords need to do background checks (not as extensive as in TFA, but some background checking) because laws have made it extremely difficult to get rid of a problem tenant. A contractor friend of mine would (in addition to his regular contracting work) buy a second home, fix it up, rent it out while he placed it on the market and waited for it to sell, then do it again. The third or fourth time he did this, he decided to skip the background check (his wife and kids pleaded with him to pay the $500, but he decided it was a waste of money). The tenant he ended up getting was a professional squatter. As soon as he'd been living there long enough to qualify under the state's definition of residence, he immediately stopped paying rent, and used every trick in the book (filing court papers on the last date, filing for every extension possible) to drag out the eviction process as long as possible. After more than a year with no rental income, my friend's savings had been drained, the bank foreclosed on both the rental house and his personal home, and his credit was ruined. (He'd bought a bigger personal home than he could afford with just his contracting work, since fixing up houses and selling them provided such a good profit. But with his money and credit tied up in the house occupied by the squatter, he couldn't buy another house to fix up.) He now lives in a rental apartment, and he's still working as a contractor even though he's getting close to 70 because he needs that income.
1) For your own financial well-being, you should never pay more than 33% of your gross income as rent (or mortgage + taxes + insurance). If the only housing you can find exceeds 33%, then you are either looking in too expensive a neighborhood, or you need to be more aggressive in demanding higher pay before accepting a job. (For the income levels you're talking about, this is probably in the neighborhood of 40% of net income.)
2) Rents are determined by the market. If the rent is excessive, that means the demand for housing in the area is much greater than the supply, and it becomes "worth it" for developers to build more
Legislation time (Score:4, Interesting)
"No social media presence? Well, I'm sorry sir, but we just don't know who you are..."
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If your knee-jerk reaction is "legislation time" every time a company misbehaves, then "housing allocation" is pretty much what you end up with: a small number of politically connected, powerful megabusinesses running everything--if you're lucky--or state-owned housing otherwise.
Housing otherwise is still supposed to be a free market; that is, buyers and renters voluntarily agree with sellers and owners to engage in transactions. When the seller/owner is a jerk, your best choice is to walk away, not to call
Got to show the report (Score:4, Informative)
All that the (prospective) tenant needs to do is to submit a Subject access request [ico.org.uk] (possibly paying £10) and they have to give all of the information within 40 days. Certainly for people in England (and it is a British company), I don't know what happens if someone from the USA would try it.
Trouble is that many people will just hand over their passwords and forget about it.
What if they don't have facebook? (Score:2)
I don't. Nor do I have most of the others.
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Headline or puzzle? (Score:2)
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Washington Post [washingtonpost.com] had a better title of "Creepy startup will help landlords, employers and online dates strip-mine intimate data from your Facebook page", but also used strip mine data.
Strip mining is a very intrusive process that removes the easily visible stuff right at the surface and digs deep to get to the valuable material underneath after sorting through it, and ultimately leaves a giant ugly hole. Seems like that
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Given those number of characters (the Slashdot limit) how would you have written it?
Errrm, ... don't rent from these landlords? ... (Score:2)
... Maybe? Perhaps?
Honestly, I don't get it.
I once had a landlord who specifically required a key to have access to the appartment in case I left a candle burning or something. Apparently he'd had some experience along those lines in the past that had resulted in a fire. if, so, btw., that would've been entirely the fault of the tenant and the tenants liability to pay damages and whatnot.
I stroke out those lines in the contract. He said no way would he sign it that way. I respectfully declined and he had to
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Every apartment I lived in during my younger years the landlord retained a key to the property. They were all apartment communities in the United States. Lease language as well as case law is pretty well establish that the tenant has a right to privacy, but the landlord also has a right to access the property for emergencies, maintenance, or to show the property to potential tenants or purchasers. 24 hour advance notice may be required by local law for the latter 2, but not for the first.
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Sure, this, when it's only a small percentage of companies that do things like this. Stuff like this is concerning because if it becomes widespread, "don't put up with shitty/illegal contracts" becomes "don't rent anywhere". I put mandatory arbitration agreements in this category. If you don't want to accept a mandatory arbitration agreement, that's synonymous with not having a credit card, for example.
be thankful (Score:2)
If the landlord thinks this is a good idea, be thankful. Why? Because you don't want to rent from such a jerk.
We need laws against this shit (Score:2)
I think we need governments to step in and make such intrusion illegal. It's not just a matter of expecting people to be canny enough to give snoops a fake profile.
Yes, big government, nanny state and all that with such a move to protect the kiddies from the cold winds of capitalism unfettered by the morality we've relied on to make capitalism work.
Hey libertarians out there, you are getting the world you wanted.
Just set up fake accounts? (Score:2)
Sigh. (Score:2)
Breach of the Data Protection Act. Even employers cannot ask you to do this, and not providing service if the user refuses to allow it will see you in court too.
Honestly, that's a business with a life expectancy of precisely one lawsuit threat.
No, this isn't going on in Britain.
No, it's nothing to do with Big Brother.
It's a company being stupid and knowingly doing illegal stuff that, when the Data Controller finds out, he'll nail them to the wall for. It has absolutely no basis is reality, even if some pe
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Breach of the Data Protection Act. Even employers cannot ask you to do this, and not providing service if the user refuses to allow it will see you in court too.
Honestly, that's a business with a life expectancy of precisely one lawsuit threat.
No, this isn't going on in Britain.
No, it's nothing to do with Big Brother.
It's a company being stupid and knowingly doing illegal stuff that, when the Data Controller finds out, he'll nail them to the wall for. It has absolutely no basis is reality, even if some people were stupid enough to give them access.
Sure, the data controller will do that--if they were providing their services in Britain. Since this is a US journalist (implicitly) talking about its use in the US, nothing says that they're running afoul of British law.
Wrong on many facts. (Score:2)
The regulator is called the information commissioner, not the data controller, who is the person at the company legally responsible for compliance. The data subject is well, the subject of the data.
The Data Protection Act applies were either the data controller or the data subject are UK entities. So the personal data of Americans or any anybody is legal protected when held by a UK company.
This company is clearly acting illegally and subject to a £6k fine per person per breach.
Asking to VIOLATE FB/etc T-o-S ? (Score:2)
I'm surprised lawyers aren't all over this. Granting anyone else access to your FaceBook, InstaGram, or worse, SlashDot account login information is against the Terms-of-Service, as is using it in an insecure way (known hazardous friends). FB lawyers actually have a cause-of-action as someone is inducing their customers to break their contracts.
No different from employers, landlords could easily face discrimination lawsuits. But more likely to fear FB who can marshall endless legions of lawyers. I'm s
Lorem ipsum (Score:2)
Very strangely their site is full of Lorem ipsum, got the feeling this is either deliberately creating a faux controversy for farming inbound links or perhaps just a massive troll.
ftw (Score:2)
WTF (Score:2)
WTF is going on with these criminal scumbags? Enough, kill the landlords demanding this of tenants. Break out the torches, pitchforks, and guillotines already.
Totally Illegal (Score:2)
And they are too stupid to know it.
The privacy laws make it illegal for the landlords to ask AND also illegal for the anyone working for the land lords to ask those things.
No company is allowed to break the law merely because they have a contract from their victims saying they can.
Otherwise landlords would have you sign such a contract before you rent a place.
Re: It's simple (Score:5, Insightful)
Tricky in the uk the current government has engeineered an intentional housing and renting bubble over 10% faster than wages. Which has been exaggerated by Chinese/russian magnates buying property just as an investment. If enough landlords like it you wont have a choice
Re: It's simple (Score:4, Informative)
You've seen nothing till you see Vancouver BC and Fraser Valley BC area housing bubble. Fucking insane.
Re: It's simple (Score:4, Informative)
No, its because of social media it happens (Score:5, Insightful)
If Millenials weren't so damn eager to tell the whole world and his dog about their tedious lives on social media in the first place this company couldn't exist. Reap what you sow kiddies.
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Ironically, this whole disturbing business might fail before long precisely because younger generations are much more aware of the dangers of over-sharing. The Millenial generation probably is going to suffer for sharing too freely, but at least their kids seem to be learning from their mistakes, and it's going to be fewer of the Millenials and more of their kids who want to rent as time goes by.
Re: No, its because of social media it happens (Score:2)
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The difference is we have worked out not to put our real names on the stuff we are telling the whole world and his dog. Also less ads, far less personal info and even beta looked less like someone had thrown a cake at the screen than BookFace and the rest.
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Is a discussion board social media? I suppose it is in a way but there's no personal aspect to it so its not the same as facebook et al IMO.
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If Millenials weren't so damn eager to tell the whole world and his dog about their tedious lives on social media in the first place this company couldn't exist. Reap what you sow kiddies.
Wow... I mean, is it hard to be that smugly self-satisfied? Do you have to put actual effort into it? This is a serious problem, but yeah, totally use it as an opportunity to take an easy swipe at young people doing something you disapprove of.
Very few people forecast the rise of large data processing, and it's only very recently that this sort of bullshit has started happening. I get that you hate millenials, perhaps you should also consider how catastrophically they've been failed by previous generations,
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Link for my earlier number: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/educ... [bbc.co.uk]
That is based on a gov.uk report. I will admit that I remembered the period wrong - should have been 7 years. Point remains the same though.
I won't be applying to rent anywhere anymore so I couldn't care less.
Well exactly. That's very much my point - you don't care. Doesn't affect you, so fuck anyone else.
And for information, I'm a bit older than millenial and have managed to get property and consider myself doing fine. Weirdly though, I can though still care about problems that aren't just about me.
Re:It's simple (Score:5, Interesting)
It's trickier than that in the UK. Demand for housing, even rental housing, currently outstrips supply in much of the country (certainly in the parts with major economic activity where people want to live). Our planning system mostly dates from the late 1960s and was designed to limit urban sprawl. That's getting very painful in light of the population growth we've seen over the last two decades, but the system has a powerful NIMBY lobby that defends it from any attempts at reform.
Alongside this, we've seen a huge rise in the buy-to-let market. The media focus tends to be on Russian/Chinese oligarchs buying up central London housing, but in reality, this impact of this is largely dwarfed by the armies of baby-boomers who, spurred on by various cultural and economic factors, have decided to invest in buying properties to rent out instead of more traditional pensions/savings/investments. There have been some recent efforts by Government to stem this tide, but it's too soon for them to have had any real effect.
The end result of all this is that getting a place to live in a good chunk of the UK is now an undignified scramble. Even grotty rental places often only remain available for a few hours and are the subject of unseemly (and sometimes illegal) bidding wars between potential tenants.
The startup described in TFA sounds, to be blunt, illegal. I cannot possibly see how what they are doing complies with the data protection act and the degree of coverage they're getting makes me suspect that they will be flipped from start-up to close-down quite quickly. That said, somebody will probably tweak the model to comply with the relevant laws and come back with it in a few months time.
My own solution to this kind of thing is fairly simple. I have Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, but there is absolutely nothing on there that does not need to be on there. These exist purely so that I have something that I can put down on forms for job applications etc. They have some professional biographical information, a few links to the profiles of colleagues who have created profiles for the same purposes (and have similarly bland, corporate profiles) and nothing else. I have no "personal" account on these sites as I feel no need to broadcast my life and I would not touch Twitter with a shitty stick.
So yeah... you want access to my Facebook and LinkedIn, go ahead. Trust me, they have an anaesthetic effect.
Re:It's simple (Score:4, Insightful)
What is worrying me is that I can't immediately see why this would be illegal under current data protection law in England and Wales, because it appears that the prospective tenant is giving their explicit consent to processing the data. Even with sensitive personal data (with the Data Protection Act meaning of the term, i.e., politics, religion and the like) having explicit consent turns off a lot of legal safeguards the subject would otherwise enjoy.
I completely agree with everyone saying this is shady as hell, but since private landlords also have no obligation to offer accommodation to any particular individual, if they all start using this sort of system I don't see that there's much tenants can do about it. They can try to find alternative accommodation that doesn't come with the same intrusion, but that could be difficult in some areas due to the shortage of decent housing, as others have mentioned. They could lobby for better regulation, but historically that has not been very successful in reigning in abusive landlords and the letting agencies they hide behind.
Unless there is a credible case that landlords have made decisions based on personal data that they aren't allowed to consider under anti-discrimination laws or something along those lines, which does seem to make it unwise for this spyware company to pass on that sort of data to landlords in the first place, I'm not sure what there is to actually stop this as the law stands today.
Re:It's simple (Score:5, Informative)
"What is worrying me is that I can't immediately see why this would be illegal under current data protection law in England and Wales"
There are two reasons, first, that I have covered elsewhere, is that they're providing a credit score. This is a regulated industry by the FCA, and they're not registered as a financial services company with the FCA for this purpose. Registering imposes certain requirements on them, such as being able to justify how they came to a credit score. If they're using artificial intelligence/statistical techniques as they claim to determine credit score from social media data then it's near impossible to fulfil this obligation because retracing how and why such systems came up with the score they did on an individual basis is damn near impossible, it just doesn't give the auditability required for FCA compliance, and they're not FCA registered anyway.
From a non-financial aspect in terms of the DPA, the DPA states that an organisation cannot capture more data than is necessary for the purposes of their business. Given that their business is effectively evaluating people by capturing social media data, and that some of that data will be inherently irrelevant to determining trust, but that they're relying on statistical algorithms to figure out which data is and isn't valid, as well as including data that they're simply not even legally allowed to use as a determination (gender, sex, sexuality) then it seems pretty clear that they're not in compliance with the DPA. Perhaps most damingly is the fact that upon loading a post onto their own systems, or a picture, they may be capturing data of other people. If a person being evaluated posts "£50k to blow at Joe Bloggs 30th Birthday on Friday!" then they've already taken data illegaly about Joe Bloggs - his name, his birthday, and his age. No individual can ever give permission to a company to harvest another individual's data in this way.
The reason the big boys in this industry haven't done any of this is precisely because it's an unnavigable minefield. When you start introducing non-deterministic algorithms into the fray, with data that can be so arbitrary such as social media posts, there is absolutely no way whatsoever you can guarantee that your system is not going to discriminate based on sex, race, religion, and so on and so forth. It only takes one case where someone suggests that their race, or sex, or sexuality or similar has been taken into account creating bias in the outcome, for that data to be stored on the company's system (which it is, see the example profile) and for the company not to be able to prove otherwise for the whole system to be shut down as non-compliant and for a fine to be issued.
You're right in that there's nothing to stop an organisation harvesting data about an individual that they've been given permission to harvest by that individual, but as soon as you start doing evaluation on that data in a non, or effectively non-deterministic manner, and when that data can include personal information about others then you're going to cross the line.
But again, in this case, they've outright failed on their FCA obligations alone before you even factor that in so regardless this company is not fulfilling their legal obligations.
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[T]hey're providing a credit score. This is a regulated industry by the FCA, and they're not registered as a financial services company with the FCA for this purpose.
Interesting. That looks like a credible way to go after them if they pursue this, independent of the general data protection rules.
From a non-financial aspect in terms of the DPA, the DPA states that an organisation cannot capture more data than is necessary for the purposes of their business.
Indeed, but in this case if the purpose is to evaluate the prospective tenant's trustworthiness based on their social media activity and they've given their explicit consent for that to happen, it seems optimistic to assume the DPA prohibits such activity. This feels like something you'd need a court case to determine with certainty.
No individual can ever give permission to a company to harvest another individual's data in this way.
I'd like to think that was the case, and as I
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"I'd like to think that was the case, and as I read the law it always seemed to be. However, it makes me wonder how social media apps get away with harvesting their users' entire phone/address books"
There isn't really one answer, the answers range from them being covered by data processor sections of the DPA, through to them simply breaking the law but having not been challenged.
I hate using the term Right to be Forgotten, because that's a provision of the updated Data Protection Directive, but if you look
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Data controllers don't require registration, anyone who collects personal data automatically becomes a data controller.
"But then there's nothing to say explicitly where that permission does or doesn't end, and that creates huge grey areas in the kind of situation we're talking about."
I see this sort of comment a lot on Slashdot, but I think Slashdot with it's large technical crowd is often guilty of seeing things too logically, and too binary because it's ultimately in our nature with what we do. The realit
Re:It's simple (Score:5, Interesting)
"Our planning system mostly dates from the late 1960s and was designed to limit urban sprawl. That's getting very painful in light of the population growth we've seen over the last two decades, but the system has a powerful NIMBY lobby that defends it from any attempts at reform."
I don't think that's entirely fair, part the problem is that there are massive amounts of disused brownfield territory, but developers, despite making absolutely massive profits given the money in the housing market currently, have been lobbying to destroy greenfield natural sites to build upon, because it's cheaper for them than knocking down old disused buildings, or ripping up old foundations, pipework etc. from disused ex-industrial sites.
The fact is that there is more than enough disused brownfield land to solve for the UK's housing crisis many times over. People aren't rejecting building on greenfield sites because of NIMBYism, they're rejecting it because it's simply unnecessary and because people would rather see ghastly unused ex-industrial areas turned into shiny new housing developments than they would pristine natural areas turned into shiny new housing developments.
I don't think we should be destroying our argicultural and natural landscapes just because it's cheaper for property developers to build on fresh land than it is to tidy up old industrial areas. If we allow them to do that then we still end up with tatty old industrial areas that look awful, bring down the value of an area, and increase crime as a result whilst destroying nice argicultural or recreational area needlessly.
I think most people would be more than happy with building on these old sites, because it raises the value of an area for people already living around. It's win-win for everyone except property developers who make on slightly less massive profits.
This isn't to say that there aren't legislative changes that can be made to improve the housing situation, there are, an obvious one being that anyone not using land they own that is disused but could be regenerated sould be forced to sell it of or regenerate it themselves rather than sit on it simply in the hope of profiting off the increases in land value at some arbitrary point in the future even though it adds to the artificial land scarcity and brings down the value of an area, but we don't need to make it easier to build on green belt, we already have way more than enough unprotected land to satisfy the country's building needs long into the future. We just need to make sure it's used sensibly.
No Land Tax (Score:5, Interesting)
The cost of brown field site development is one issue, but not really the major one. My wife has worked on a number of building refurbishments (they are extremely common in London), and they are not that difficult, expensive, or slow to complete vs new builds. Indeed, the cost of land is so high in London now, that it shouldn't make a difference anyway. Provided the cost of cleaning up the brownfield site is less than the greenfield equivalent value, the development still makes economic sense.
Rather, the main problem is that there is virtually no cost to just sitting on land in the UK. Property rates are incredibly low, and there is no land tax. For many properties now, rent would barely cover depreciation and management fees, so it is simpler to just leave the property empty. Similarly, why go to all the risk of building housing on an empty site when this makes you maybe 1/10 of the money you are making from annual capital gains. Doing actual construction has much more risk than doing nothing, and the returns are unlikely to be worth having to deal with contractors and suppliers.
Just visit the ghost streets of the west end, or Stratford (which 3 years on from the olympics is still releasing housing at a glacial pace) to see how this all works.
The London market is fundamentally being squeezed by land banking. The way to fix it would be with a tax on the unimproved value of land, with the proceeds used to build social housing, but the trouble the govt has now is that enough middle class people are tangled up in potential negative equity situations that they cannot let the bubble collapse.
My pick is a sterling crisis, and the BoE being forced to raise rates to defend the currency. This will wipe out all the middle class hanger-ons, clearing the way for a democratic re-adjustment of the land usage system.
Re:It's simple (Score:4, Interesting)
With that said, I do not in the slightest expect this service to yield any form of useful info from tenants' social media data. I do things the old fashioned way, by doing an interview and going by gut feeling.
Re: It's simple (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: It's simple (Score:2)
It maybe a technicality, but the terms of service for those websites are unlikely to be regarded as a contract under UK law. We require consideration to pass from both parties before a contract is valid, and it's hard to see what co side ration is given by a user of a free website.
That's not to say that terms of service have no legal force, but they're very unlikely to be subject to the law of contract.
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. . .And providing a service does not count as consideration ? Interesting. . .
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Consideration does not have to be monetary. For example, in the case of the four web sites you mentioned, the service of storing and distributing the user's information is providing something of value to the user.
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Re:landlords aren't legally allowed to consider (Score:5, Insightful)
What does that mean? A landlord can't turn someone down without having to give a legal and adequate reason? Could a landlord have to defend a rejection of a tenant, in court?
The problem with bringing up terms like "legally defend" is the fact that it's going to cost someone money to do so. And likely more than they can afford. I'm willing to bet that the "target" audience for this are those who cannot afford to challenge this legally, which is almost as disgusting as the actions to destroy privacy detailed in TFS.
This needs to be shut down. The world needs to see this and respond. It's too bad most don't give a shit about privacy anymore.
Quite honestly, it's sad, because if a boycott of online services created an impact large enough (read: people would have to start giving a shit about privacy again), then social media owners would be the one legally challenging this. I'd love to see this piss-ant start up defend themselves against the social media giants.
Also, perhaps someone should dig deeper into this "start-up", because this almost smells State-sponsored. Can't think of too many other entities that would be data-mining like this.
Re:landlords aren't legally allowed to consider (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, perhaps someone should dig deeper into this "start-up", because this almost smells State-sponsored. Can't think of too many other entities that would be data-mining like this.
Are you kidding? Landlords would chew their arm off to use this service. No sinister state sponsored motive required.
Re:landlords aren't legally allowed to consider (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, perhaps someone should dig deeper into this "start-up", because this almost smells State-sponsored. Can't think of too many other entities that would be data-mining like this.
Are you kidding? Landlords would chew their arm off to use this service. No sinister state sponsored motive required.
NO business would "chew their arm off" to use this if the end result was no new customers, AND existing customers leaving, because they would not agree to the new terms.
As I said, people would have to start giving a shit about privacy again for that to happen.
People NEED to start giving a shit about privacy again to avoid this becoming the norm, or even a mandate across all businesses. I fail to see the need for this kind of invasive shit when landlords have plenty of other protections and tools at their disposal. Show me how the results of data mining like this fixes some kind of "growing problem" that landlords are dealing with. I'm willing to bet they can't.
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NO business would "chew their arm off" to use this if the end result was no new customers
When your potential customers like to set up meth labs or are just generally scummy assholes that will have no regard for your property or other residents, yeah, they would.
Re:landlords aren't legally allowed to consider (Score:5, Insightful)
NO business would "chew their arm off" to use this if the end result was no new customers
When your potential customers like to set up meth labs or are just generally scummy assholes that will have no regard for your property or other residents, yeah, they would.
Sorry, but this is why criminal background checks, credit checks, and deposits exist. I highly doubt social media sleuthing is going to flush out a meth dealer. Regardless, the answer here isn't to treat everyone like a criminal. The answer here is harsher punishments against actual criminals.
Re: landlords aren't legally allowed to consider (Score:4, Insightful)
The so-called "right to be forgotten" disagrees with you. Once a criminal serves their time in prison, or more likely are simply released with a caution or ASBO, they are Reformed. They will be good for their entire life, so landlords and the like have no right to know whether their would-be tenant blew up his last two apartments and left meth-lab chemicals saturating the walls to neighboring units.
Re: landlords aren't legally allowed to consider (Score:5, Insightful)
Once a criminal serves their time in prison, or more likely are simply released with a caution or ASBO, they are Reformed. They will be good for their entire life, so landlords and the like have no right to know whether their would-be tenant blew up his last two apartments and left meth-lab chemicals saturating the walls to neighboring units.
So your preferred alternative is that once released, this person should be marked for life, and no one will ever rent to them again? You enjoy having a large homeless population in your city, do you?
Re:landlords aren't legally allowed to consider (Score:4, Interesting)
It's more than just 'giving a shit' though, the market won't protect people at the bottom of the rung because they can't afford to give a shit. Housing is particularly egregious for this because it's not something you get much choice in alot of the time. Britain is in the middle of a housing crisis at the moment and landlords hold all the cards. This isn't "don't buy a bad product that isn't that important", it's "don't have shelter". There isn't enough housing and the poorer get utterly shafted, and stuff like this just makes it even worse.
Legal protections are necessary - that's the entire point of law, to protect those who the system won't.
Re:landlords aren't legally allowed to consider (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, perhaps someone should dig deeper into this "start-up", because this almost smells State-sponsored. Can't think of too many other entities that would be data-mining like this.
Are you kidding? Landlords would chew their arm off to use this service. No sinister state sponsored motive required.
Quite possibly you are right.
On the other hand, a credit check and a simple "must be above this point" criteria works wonders for landlords. (Or so they tell me.) It's simple, will be fair because it's both open and everybody has an equal chance to get approved.
I am not sure most landlords would really care about it as long as the checks clear on time and the place isn't trashed or there are complaints by other tenants.
As a tenant myself, I LIKE the fact that the landlord is weeding out people that can't pay. It's a nicer place to live as a result. Plus it makes me more willing to positively contribute if everybody else is also.
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Yes, that is what "ban the box" is about. Ask these people [nelp.org] what policies they push.
Ban-the-box laws typically make it illegal for employers to inquire about an applicant's criminal history before an interview or job offer (the details about which one varies by state; the activist group I linked to above wants to only allow it after a conditional job offer is made). They limit the kind or age of convictions that can be considered, and the categories of employers or where convictions can be considered at al
Re:landlords aren't legally allowed to consider (Score:4, Insightful)
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The problem with bringing up terms like "legally defend" is the fact that it's going to cost someone money to do so. And likely more than they can afford
Since the is the UK, US law clearly ins't applicable; however, in the US using such a service and then denying a tenant a lease would probably open up a landlord to a Fair Housing Act violation. Such lawsuits can be lucrative enough to warrant a contingency fee lawsuit.
Re: landlords aren't legally allowed to consider (Score:4, Funny)
It's too bad most don't give a shit about privacy anymore.
Reminds me of the mid 90s and BBSs... you NEVER gave your real name out, or your photo (it would've taken forever anyway)
Then look at how things are today...
I really miss the 90's. I hate having to give my real name, Attila Thehun, to every website where I create an account.
Re:landlords aren't legally allowed to consider (Score:4, Insightful)
IMHO this invades people's privacy and causes self-censorship in the long run. This kind of tool would also open the door for all kinds of discrimination; people who won't rent to homosexuals, people of different ethnic backgrounds, people with differing political views and so forth. All of the aforementioned types of discrimination are a reality already today, but we should by no means make it easier for anyone.
Re: landlords aren't legally allowed to consider (Score:4, Informative)
He said pimps and rappers, that's a sufficient dog whistle for someone like that without the balls to just come out and admit that they are bigots.
What he doesn't realize is that there aren't many people who'd want someone like that as their landlord. People that nasty tend to be horrible in other ways.
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Re:Please help -- (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Please help -- (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:It's okay, it's not a freedom of speech issue (Score:5, Insightful)
What part of "British Startup" made you think that the USA's constitutional amendments would have any relevance whatsoever?
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Because it's included with the summary text, a reader might reasonably believe one of these href dingleberries has something to do with the summary or article. But instead, it's a link to another, semi-random Slashdot article that is only vaguely related to the subject matter. It is most likely a tool to increase internal pageviews, recirculating readers (like greywater going from your shower to your toilet) into barely on-topic posts from
Re:It's okay, it's not a freedom of speech issue (Score:4, Insightful)
Whether SJWs see the irony or not, both groups were/are correct:
Once you step away from liberty, you lose...
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BULLSHIT
This is greedy, overreaching, bullying extortion...