No privacy for Lisa, or you

By STAFF REPORTERS

In the beginning she was just a name: Lisa Maree Barber.

One name among the millions of New Zealanders.

Then, with her permission, we followed her trail through databases and private files, through phone books and official records.

In a major Weekend Herald investigation, our reporters showed how public our private lives have become.

In just a few days we discovered hundreds of details, covering pages of notes, about one remarkable, ordinary woman.

We found things she did not know herself. Public officials gave us information that should have been kept private. We found people who quoted the Privacy Act then gossiped.

We found out her medical conditions, what videos she likes, what happened in her first year at university, how much rent she pays, what's on her credit card, which gym she goes to, all about her house, family and jobs.

We found former employers who gossiped about her ex-boyfriend. We contacted ACC officials who revealed her medical problems. We encountered some Government agencies and private companies that never bothered to check us when we asked for information.

We found her e-mail and discovered how to open it.

We didn't find everything about Lisa Barber. Some databases remained secure. But we found enough to shock the woman who had allowed us to investigate her.

The Weekend Herald investigation was mounted to test the limits of privacy; we concluded they could be very limited indeed.

The investigation was simple. We would not stake out Lisa or interfere in her life in any way. Nor would we mount a cyber-attack on Government databases. We would simply do what a determined person might to track someone.

Doing it was even simpler. Everybody leaves a trail. At the bank, on security cameras, on supermarket checkout stubs, in tax records, school results, work histories.

Right now your details could be held by 20 Government departments or agencies. You may appear on 43 public registers.

Your name could be on dozens of commercial lists; known in dozens of shops and businesses.

We tried to access them. Sometimes we failed. On the whole, Lisa's bank records eluded us.

But the ACC gave out some details of her medical conditions, the University of Otago sent us her academic record, Inland Revenue gave details of her tax.

Video stores faxed records of what she had viewed, her gym confirmed her membership and gave her home address, a hair stylist told us about a cut in 1999.

Much of our information came from the age-old human urge to gossip, to pass on information, to reveal details, rather than high-tech access to modern databases.

We discovered that Lisa, like thousands of New Zealanders, doesn't pay much regard to passwords for her security. Her e-mail was frighteningly easy to open, potentially giving us access to all her friends and family.

When the Weekend Herald showed Lisa what we had discovered, she was surprised and shocked.

"You expect there to be public information about you. But I was shocked the way people just gave out information - almost gossip - over the phone.

"There were times, 'I thought 'My God, how could they give out that?"'

But people did.

And they could do the same about you.

Your open secrets


The right to a private life is one of our most treasured freedoms. We believe that if you are not breaking the law or interfering with others, you are at liberty to run your life as you please - it is nobody else's business.

We even have an official body to protect that privacy. But there is an increasing fear that in the age of information technology those rights are being taken away from us.

Details of your private life are being collected, kept and made available in more ways than ever before. Impersonal agencies know more about you than you would dream of telling your neighbours

A team of Herald writers has been investigating just how public our private lives have become.

Details about you may be held by at least 20 Government departments or agencies. You may also appear on 43 public registers. Some of that information is for sale and is passed on to commercial agencies.

But that's just the start. While central Government builds up its databases so do your local council and the big businesses who buy personal information and collect huge amounts of details themselves.

From Government to your local council, from big business to your neighbourhood video shop, from border controls to supermarket security, the Weekend Herald has been uncovering just what secrets of your own lives are, in fact, public information.

We look at the state of the law and what steps you can take to stop your life from becoming an open book.

Starting today: a series that will challenge the way you see the world by showing how the world can see you.

Herald Online feature: Privacy