Startup will help landlords and employers mine intimate data from Facebook

That's a truly horrible justification of an invasive, creepy service. Who defines 'normal'? What's the scoring criteria?

I've got a mortgage on my flat, but if I were renting, I wouldn't rent any landlord using this start-up. Being sent this request by them would instantly signal to me that they're not the kind of landlord from whom any sane, reasonable person should rent if they have any other choice.

I sincerely hope this start-up fails and that Thornhill and his other co-founder/s come to realise that their idea is deeply invasive and shits all over a large part of society who are less fortunate than they.

All for a low, low price of $9.99/month!

And there in lies the problem I have with this. The sad thing is that a large percentage of people would give up their privacy because the old "if you have nothing to hide then what are you worried about?" is still sadly a common mindset.

I would expect there to be a greater push from Facebook, Twitter, etc to crack down on companies trying to do this though. Because at the end of the day the way to avoid this surveillance is to not use their services.

And then once they have your permission, you'll probably forget about it.

So once they go to release their dating app, if they have enough people, they don't need your permission because the probably already have access to your profile through your friends who might have rented an apartment.

And this kids is why even if you're secure, you need all your friends to be just as secure.

"Meanwhile, unlike credit reports — which you may, under federal law, request every 12 months — Tenant Assured doesn’t give users any way to view their ratings or dispute misleading data."

Well, if they make this service available in the US they would most likely be considered a CRA (Consumer Reporting Agency) and be subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act which requires all those things.

I also take issue with "going out on the weekends" being considered a negative in general. I go out most weekends but we both make so much money we can more than afford it. I don't think an algorithm can determine irresponsible spending from responsible spending just from Facebook, your bank account balance tells you more than your Facebook posts, which can be misleading.

And you guys who are saying "oh, I'd never rent from a landlord who uses this service," you may not have a choice. If 99.99 - 100% of landlords use this service you don't get a choice. This is where laws come in. You aren't going to be able to negotiate with a landlord either because if they deviate from their standard tenant policy than it can look like housing discrimination.

I was recently looking for an apartment and found one in liked . After contacting the landlord I Googled his name and found his facebook. Scrolling through his history I saw a post from 2 years ago commenting that he just "found a sucker" to rent out the apartment. I thought it was pretty tasteless at best.

Are we to believe that this company has actually done proper analysis to make these kinds of correlations? If not, what sort of legal liabilities exist for trying to make these sorts of predictions based on speculation / assumption? This seems like something that consumers should be protected against, but I assume that the company at least thinks it can hide behind the (implicit or explicit) consent that potential tenants provide by signing up voluntarily.

   a list of every time I’ve tweeted the words “loan” and “pregnant,”

I help manage an apartment building. We prefer not to even know if applicants have kids so we can't be accused of anything if we turn them down. Though the applicant ranking process is essentially dump every applicant with bad credit, then sort by income decreasing.

Also, in the image, you see the word "loan" and "loans" show up. I'd put money on their 'NLP' really being grep, because it looks like they aren't even stemming. ie even mentioning the word loan will show up there, regardless of context. Or borrow, as in I borrowed a book from the library.

The new information commissioner will be Elizabeth Denham, so it'll be fascinating to see what she thinks.

EDIT: I can't seem to find their ICO registration. I can find one registration for Steve Thornhill, for a "Sonic Finance". I have no idea if it's the same person.

https://ico.org.uk/ESDWebPages/Entry/Z1586532

Housing isn't a want, it's a need. What a disgusting perspective.