Recently, while purchasing a piece of furniture, the sales clerk typed my name into his computer and called up my address. I had never previously purchased anything from this particular store, and while the clerk enjoyed less than complete familiarity with the product line he was selling, with a few strokes of the keyboard he was able to locate my residence.
The incident reminded me of the documentary Erasing David, recently released on DVD. British filmmaker David Bond, appalled by the erosion of privacy in our data driven society, decided to film his attempt to escape the net of surveillance by staging a test scenario: he would disappear and a private detective agency was given 30 days to find him. Cameras tracked the hunter and hunted.
Before embarking on his journey to oblivion, Bond conferred with a privacy consultant who warned him about everything. FaceBook is an obvious sieve of personal information for the careless. Cell phones and blackberries? They can become tracking devices. Twitter? Any fool can intercept a tweet. The P.I.s were endlessly clever. Because they found the birth date of Bond's wife in some database, they could guess her security code at the hospital and find the time of her next appointment. They were laying an ambush.
In his flight across the European Union, Bond interviewed former East Germans who recalled the elaborate web of information gathered on every citizen by the infamous Stasi, the secret police. In today's Free World, government agencies and corporations have a much easier time than the diligent spies of the Cold War in violating everyone's privacy. In the 21st century, millions of people absentmindedly open themselves to data mining and theft. We can only gain access to services by giving away information. As Bond learns, it's hard to live off the grid.
Erasing David is paced like a thriller (complete with the requisite captions reading DAY TWO or FOUR MONTHS EARLIER) and digresses into the personal. Ironically, we know a lot about Bond the privacy activist through his documentary—including his vulnerability to paranoia while hiding and being pursued.
