UK startup offers landlords continuous, deep surveillance of tenants' social media

You’re being sarky, yes? Because no sensible tenant wants their landlord watching their social media like an evil step-parent.

3 Likes

“Extravert” - LOL

1 Like

That’s like taking two shots of Curious Yellow.

“If you’re living a normal life then, frankly, you have nothing to worry about.”

For a given value of “normal”.

3 Likes

This is invasive and unacceptable, but ffs Cory, dial back the hyperbole a bit would you? Tenants have their rights, and their rights are (last time I checked - I haven’t rented for 5 years) getting better.

It’s a good thing the EU has good privacy laws, eh?

4 Likes

This post and the one about the Oklahoma police are just a tiny taste of what life would be like if the libertarians and the states-rights crowd had unchecked power.

(edit: spellign fix)

3 Likes

That Act is mostly toothless and unenforced as far as private entities go, but anyway it only covers uses of data to which the subject hasn’t consented (e.g. a bank selling on your contact details). Since tenants would “freely choose” to grant their landlord access, it’s totally legal. You could argue that the consent was coerced, but I doubt the system would permit that argument, since it would undermine the foundations of the feudal system.

It does seem like, even in the UK, buying a report from Source Assured amounts to buying a certificate that says “I am guilty of discrimination”; that will eventually backfire on the company, but they’ll have profited from a lot of human misery in the meantime.

1 Like

My “Fuck off and die” radar didn’t hit full brightness until I read this sentence:

Dear Mr. Thornhill: please Fuck off and die.

9 Likes

I am a bit confused by this.

As far as i understand the eviction process is not that hard in the UK, so, why the need for this?
Here in Italy it is a serious problem (evicting someone is usually way too hard, thanks to the state saddling the landlords with its failings in coming up with a decent public housing plan) and i could understand the urge to adopt extreme measures to be sure that a tenant is a good one.
But as long as you can give the boot to someone that does not pay or is overly annoying, i don’t see the point.

Made me think of this: http://boingboing.net/2016/05/31/salt-lake-city-apartment-compl.html

It won’t just be YOUR posts. There’s been reporting in the past about bank plans to bias credit-worthiness scores based on who your Facebook friends are and THEIR activity, because your own activity might not give a clear enough picture.

1 Like
3 Likes

Please. These are Isolated incidents. Do Not look for a "pattern.

1 Like

Presumably a graphic of a landlord assuredly bending a white working-class tenant over a barrel while kicking a brown working-class tenant with a Gucci boot.

1 Like

I agree, this is the reason why enough homes aren’t being built in the UK. And it sounds like a nefarious conspiracy until you acknowledge that the “investors and landlords” are the 65% of the voting public who own a home and object to more being built nearby.

Democracy doesn’t guarantee happy outcomes for everyone.

2 Likes

More so in Scotland than in England: if you have a Short Assured Tenancy (which most renters do – plain Assured Tenancies give you even more rights), you can’t just be chucked out at the end of the initial term. The landlord has to give one of a statutorily enumerated list of reasons for you to quit (with two months’ written notice), or else the lease continues month to month (or for another fixed term, if both parties agree). This list of reasons includes things like the landlord’s wish to live in the property his/herself, or sell it, or renovate it (and other more esoteric things, like the property is needed by a minister of religion); it does not include the desire of the landlord to stop renting to people like you and start renting to what he/she considers a better class of tenant.

And it’s illegal in Scotland for landlords and letting agents to charge potential tenants application fees, credit check fees, admin fees, or in fact any sort of fee other than the deposit and initial rent.

2 Likes

Steve Thornhill needs to be doxed.

Interesting. Do tenants in Scotland have a preemptive right to buy their home as they have in France?

Not as far as I’m aware.