Hasta La Ideas

To flag up Privacy International‘s new report on European attitudes to privacy, This Is Real Art has created a short film which illustrates the various data trails people can unwittingly leave behind during an hour of online activity…

Filmed as if a surveillance camera is monitoring a stream of data, the short describes how data is stored and shared when users update their social networks, use smart phone apps, or carry out internet searches. Organisations who can potentially access the data include internet search companies, the police and various third parties.

Since 1990, Privacy International has been involved in protecting the right to privacy, often by challenging the work of businesses and governments. They also compile an annual report on the privacy situation in European countries which results in a league table of each nation’s privacy credentials. To launch this year’s report, TiRA were briefed to “show the staggering amount of personal information we all unknowingly give away hourly to governments and corporations,” they explain.

“The current scandal about phone hacking is quite rightly causing outrage,” says TiRA creative director Paul Belford. “What is less understandable is why there isn’t also an outcry about all the information that’s legally taken from everyone every day. This film is designed to remind us just what we could all willingly reveal about ourselves to governments and corporations in a single lunch hour.”

The film will feature in the Sense & The City exhibition at the London Transport Museum this month. The show explores how new technology is shaping the way that people live, work and travel in the city. More on Privacy International at privacyinternational.org.