Estate agent's hi-tech house tour exposes personal data
bbc.com
bbc.com
This technology makes it more likely for the volume of leaked data to increase, and the photo resolutions give more data per image, but agents have been trained to stage houses for a long time and should be expected to handle this. Blame the agent.
Although the tech certainly has room for improvement. All it takes is for someone to sue Zillow for exposing their private images online for automatic blurring technology to magically appear.
We've had videos and virtual tours for a long time. I no longer need someone to show me around a physical space.
Making the process of searching for - and hopefully purchasing - your "dream home" as smooth and safe as possible is arguably the best way for these agents to retain their jobs as we enter an age where much of what they do can be automated.
Now, whether or not that's worth the high percentage they skim off the top is a whole 'nother question.
I often find the process of mapping jargon takes one about halfway to expertise in many matters. Learning the search terms, their nuances, and their flexibility is work. There is value in someone who can translate my rambling into those terms.
This isn't how it works where I live. As a buyer, you pay no commission. The seller pays his agent a commission and your agent negotiates with the seller for a portion of that commission.
I don’t want to become an expert in real estate. I just want a place that matches my needs, has the right mojo, and fits my budget. I have time to see 3 places.
When that’s you, suddenly realtors (or a bored spouse with lots of free time) are crazy valuable.
Judging by the ludicrous FOV estate agents typically use in photos, that's a feature (to them) - as are the other limitations you cite.
There's also a trend of photoshopping furniture into an image, which I cannot stand. The entire point of photographing a room with furniture is to give a sense of the scale in it. That simply doesn't happen with photoshopped furniture, because the relative size is determined by the scaling of the images, rather than the actual size of the room/furniture. The photoshopped images should be viewed with extreme suspicion, and only the barest hair's breadth away from false advertising.
Yes you do. Sellers get to be picky. Especially in Covid. They aren't letting in looky-loos. At bare minimum you need to have an agent and pre-approval as a buyer so you come across as serious and interested, or you aren't getting into homes right now (speaking of Bay Area).
And if you aren't going in person, you shouldn't be submitting offers.
Eight courses, and a easy test, and you are set to go. Two years experience under a Broker (CA law) was passed a few years. (The experience bill was heavily lobbied by Realator's lobby, and sadily--Gov. Brown signed it. During the hearing 1 example of inexperience was noted as the reason for the change in requirements. A four year degree was all that was required before Realtor's got their mitts on a bill.
The result has been less competition among brokers, while their job has gotten easier. Easier in terms of digital hone showings, and all their other tech being thrown at them.
The biggest schmoozer, or cheerleader, are usually the only one's making a very comfortable living?
I never thought I would say this, but I'm waiting for the profession to be gone.
It's just an added expense to overpriced homes. 6% on a 2 million house is crazy, and I'm even a fan of paying full commissions.
Things our agent did I would not have done or not done properly on top of the paperwork and legal advice:
- got us in touch with home stylist and a photographer who were great
- had a phone book of prospective customers looking for a place like ours
- followed up with people who were interested and arranged a second showing
About the commissions, either it is very regional or we were lucky but we agreed on a flat fee plus some percent if and only if the price goes above some target.
Honestly, I would expect such an event to lead to an indemnity clause magically appearing in their future contracts - it's the lowest effort option which gives sufficient defense.
The high tech part seems not really related. The same thing would have happened with plain photos, or an in person open house.
I think tech is specifically relevant here since this is another clear example of scaling up beyond cultural norms using technology causing emergent security issues - the issues were present all along but there were some systems in place to limit how harmful they could be and technology has released us from those limits.
Obviously that doesn’t mean that one can’t pretend well enough once or twice, but not at a scale where this becomes a viable avenue to criminals.
Seriously, go visit one and see what it's like. It's not the CIA Headquarters, it's usually a minimums wage newbie agent squatting in a house advertising for clients.
And we took quite a while to figure out what we really wanted (and we were comfortable living in the place we were in, so we didn't need to make a change...)
We only ever made three offers, two of them on places we saw on the same day.
This is a great way of framing a certain class of problems that I think people on HN tend to dismiss. "Technically we're doing the same thing as before!" Yes, but as we should all know from the engineering side of things, scale is still very relevant.
When we had ours done last year, I treated it the same as when we had the internal photos done - tidy everything up, put identifiable documents away, strategically place items over the logos/names of things.
I did notice that when we went to view some properties in person, that there were personal items out on display - but the photos online were clear of anything - so it's more down to the homeowner than anyone else.
The guide we got before any photos etc clearly stated to put away anything you didn't want others to see, both for in person and for online.
"The BBC has alerted the Information Commissioner's Office." - I'm not sure why? If the homeowner missed it, and didn't follow instructions to remove before the photos, then I'm not sure that it is the fault of the agent at all.
Edit - This is from the guide we got sent after a call discussing the same things:
- The entirety of your home will be captured by the tour, and every detail will be picked up – so remove anything you don’t want seen, i.e., family photographs, clutter or boxes - Don’t leave pictures, portraits or drawings up that you don’t wish to be photographed (typically, portrait images where the person would be recognisable) - Don’t leave valuables and possessions in sight which you don’t want others to see - Please note: The technology does not allow for edits or retakes, so please ensure your home is exactly how you want it to be seen!
In person, the chance of a local person traveling to your house to photograph a cheque is non-existent.
On the internet you can script a search of all homes. Its all about the ability to search quickly.
I see companies are getting photos of my front door now when packages get delivered. I wonder what we can get from that....
Alternatively set up a honeypot by gluing a fake bill to your mailbox as if it's a letter dangling out with some personal information on the envelope? It'd be interesting to see if anyone is running any automatic extraction over pictures of mailboxes.
> In person, the chance of a local person traveling to your house to photograph a cheque is non-existent.
This is the digital version of an open house. The same mitigation that prevents this behavior from happening in real life (i.e. setting up the house in a way where guests can't see your personal info) would have fixed the problem here.
I can personally guarantee that criminals target physical "real life" open houses too, as it happened to someone I know. I suppose the internet does make it lower effort to exploit (especially from across the world), but it's at least 'comparable' in my opinion.
Always the de facto statement from the people that leak your data. I’d love to see a criminal say to the judge “I take your laws very seriously.”
Interesting. Millions of people have work-related zoom meetings (or publicly posted webinars) while sitting in front of their bookshelves. Many people don't have a problem with that. Some of those books might even be strategically placed so that they are in clear view. You can discern a little about someone's interests by what's on their bookshelves, but perhaps not always accurately.
I wonder how people feel about displaying the contents of their bookshelf online while onscreen? I'm guessing for most people it's not a concern.
Here's Bret Victor's bookshelf from 2015 which we posted himself on his website. Click to zoom: http://worrydream.com/Shelf2015/
Glad I never got into bookshelves (and that nobody of child bearing age judges people on the lack of physically displayed books in their dwelling)
People change a lot over time; I don’t judge people on what they have on their bookshelf, but it definitely provides fast context for their worldview, providing background for who they are today and how their opinions developed. It provides an immediate jumping off point to discuss common interests and ideas.
There’s nothing better for this purpose.
There is missing metadata in that approach just like there is missing metadata in the bookshelf approach.
What we need is a way to make filter bubbles and echo chambers fungible. Like, we should be able to alter our user session to that of our contact's, with their consent. Transmit their whole data-broker profile to our computer and look at it. Or browse the internet and social networks as if you had their session, just to see how search results are different, how news headlines are different, which articles are shared to them, what their stories are reinforcing.
That will be even more insightful than what your world used to be like.
He spent a lot of time looking at my mum's (questionable) books and making notes.
I've thought about that a lot over the last 20 years. How much insight you can gain from someones bookshelf.
I'm now addicted to it, where ever I go. Feels rude and invasive though, so I try not to be too obvious
This is exactly why I put Karl Marx next to F a Hayek. It's like a social logic bomb.
My workplace has specific training to use the blurring feature of the conferencing app we use, specifically for security/privacy reasons. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that other work places do the same thing.
While many people don't go around advertising their interests, political affiliation, etc - I doubt they would be too worried if you could guess it from their bookcase. Most people don't consider it particularly private information in my experience.
My stepfather had more than an entire shelf of books on Hitler in the living room as he had been working on an article about him.
Needless to say, my stepdad took the hint.
That was VERY obvious with public figures during the last year. I actually laughed a few times at the dichotomy of either partially empty shelves with these weird "poignant" books on prominent display. I usually pondered if they had actually read some of them...
And perhaps learn a little more than you expected: https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/bbc-wales-today-viewers-... (somewhat NSFW)
> Some of those books might even be strategically placed so that they are in clear view.
Or just not even bother with the books in the first place: https://www.indy100.com/news/trump-erin-elmore-bookcase-sky-...
A neighbor listed their house, then watched through their many home cams as people came for viewings.
As they walked through the house she looked them up on social media, made easier having actually seen them to match faces to names.
Then start ranking prospective buyers by their social media profiles, and behavior in her house as they looked around. The cams have mics so she could hear comments too.
Overall was pretty horrific to see how she profiled people.
When visiting the link to the realtor's platform you are greeted by that 3d model. Some faces are blurred out, but mostly on paintings and some statues so I think the realtors just use automation and call it done.
Visiting the study, I zoomed in on a cabinet with trophies and awards. Turns out you can read the name of that person on some awards, view his face on a photograph. https://www.viacapitalevendu.com/montreal-ville-marie-montre...
Searching for the name in the article confirms she is the partner of a major news anchor in Montreal Qc. and that this is their house.
I understand public figures need their privacy but obscurity shouldn't be solely relied on, especially if you have a newspaper advertising your house without saying it is your house.
Take a look at the property photos for some random homes on rightmove - every bed is made, every child's toy put away, every coffee table and nightstand free of books - there isn't even a towel in the kitchen or a toothbrush in the bathroom.
Almost nobody lives that way - they've just done a few hours of cleaning and tidying. Which is completely rational, if you're selling a home for hundreds of thousands of pounds.
I think you're under-estimating what 'staging' is. In the US it's common to literally remove all the furniture in the house and to either leave it empty or to fill it with stage furniture. They try to make them look unlived in.
If you go on Zillow in the US and look at some Californian towns it's intense.
Being used to this way of doing things, it shocks me how extremely messy the photos in the article are. As a potential buyer it makes it look so much better if you remove all the mess and the personal items.
Not that selling a house is a problem at all in this day and age, in the Netherlands: I just got an email that all options to view a house are booked, and if "I would be so kind not to call into the office because they are completely swamped and can't handle 100s of phone calls each day"...