On Tuesday 4th May, Erasing David will make its UK small screen debut being shown, in its entirety, on More4 at 10pm.
For its UK cinematic release yesterday, Erasing was shown at Picturehouse cinemas across the UK with the Brixton Ritzy’s 350 seat cinema being sold out!
After the screening there was a lively debate featuring Henry Porter, David Davis, Shami Chakrabarti, Phil Booth (of No2ID) and Will Self which was beamed to the other cinemas taking part in the screening. The debate will be shown on More4 after the film on the 4th May.
The film has featured in the national press in the last week. Click on the article titles to read them in full and check out the Cerberus related entries below:
> 22nd April 2010 – The Sun ‘Can you ever stay private in Surveillance UK?’ by Bella Battle. See below for where Cerberus featured:
Detectives at private agency Cerberus had just 30 days to catch up with him.
Using the internet and a bit of imagination, they quickly found out his family's names, dates of birth, addresses and even which junior school he had attended.
Their methods and the ease with which they employed them will shock every viewer who takes their privacy for granted.
> 28th April 2010 – The Daily Express ‘My Quest to Disappear’ by Adrian Lee. See below for where Cerberus featured in the article:
Even the private detectives who tracked Bond want tighter controls. Duncan Mee, co-owner of Cerberus Investigations, says: “The amount of information that is held about individuals has gone too far. In every day life enormous data trails are left. We were able to build a comprehensive picture of David’s life.” But he warns we all share some of the blame: “People are careless and put too much information out there, such as birthdays on social networking sites. It’s all available for public scrutiny.”
> 28th April 2010 – The Independent ‘How to disappear completely’ by David Bond. See below for Cerberus’s mention:
My producer hired Cerberus, a top firm of private investigators, to track me down. All they had to go on was my name and a recent photograph. I was to try to avoid being physically caught by them for 30 days.
…I will not say whether Cerberus caught me within the month. Watch the film. But after the month was up, they led me into their control room. One large wall was covered with information about me. They had a detailed personality profile that allowed them to predict what I might do. And all this was publicly available information. All of this is out there about you, too. Our personal data is a profound possession of ours. We should keep it safe.
> 29th April 2010 – Evening Standard ‘Every move I make, every step I take, they'll be watching me’ by David Bond. Below is a snippet of the article which features Cerberus:
I had hired the investigators, from top London firm Cerberus, to find me. I wanted to find out whether it is possible to live a private life in surveillance London. I was making a feature-length documentary called Erasing David for the Channel 4 Britdoc Foundation. A film crew was following Cerberus as they tracked me down. I was filming myself as I ran away. I wanted to know what other people can know about me. What is out there in the public domain? Can it be used to profile me to the extent that a determined investigator, identity thief or stalker, could know what I am likely to do in the future — and catch me?
Within an hour of searching for me (all they had to start with was my name and a recent photo) the private investigators had ordered my wife's, my own and my daughter's birth certificates, and my parents' and my marriage certificates.
They ran my name through a number of profiling systems to give them my credit rating, details of property I owned and my employment history. They also ran a quick profile of me on social networking sites. I had tried to remove myself from Facebook (you can never really remove yourself from Facebook) but they were able to find a good crop of my friends. I am not particularly vulnerable, by the way, anyone could do the same to you.