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British Startup Strip Mines Renters' Private Social Media For Landlords (washingtonpost.com)
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.
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
“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.
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.
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."
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.
Who did what now?
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.
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.
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
So you say that breaking at least four contracts (the Terms of Service of Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter forbid exactly what Score Assured demands) is a way to demonstrate "good character"?
Because a service like that would be sued out of existence or forbidden in the next "free" trade "agreement", since it might hinder profits of somebody.
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.
-SR
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.
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.
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.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
What part of "British Startup" made you think that the USA's constitutional amendments would have any relevance whatsoever?
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.
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.
> This needs to be shut down If it's against Facebook's terms of service, couldn't Facebook sue them into oblivion?
Whether SJWs see the irony or not, both groups were/are correct:
Once you step away from liberty, you lose...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains 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.
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?
"If there was a gay Afro-Puertorican Linux distribution, I'd give it a try" ~lucm