What inspired you to make the film?
When my daughter was a small baby, a letter arrived from the UK government. It was an apology – they had lost her and my data on a CD (it included her name, date of birth, address and my bank details). It really spooked me and I started noticing the growing number of press stories about the database state.
I read some research from the London School of Economics that said that the UK is one of the three most intrusive surveillance states in the world. That's when I decided it was time to make the film. I guess I saw it as an adventure, which I hoped would make a point. What I didn't realise was that the experience would be profoundly unsettling and transformative.
What did you learn from your experiment?
Three things. 1: If you're going to challenge people to a contest, don't pick the type who will never give up, no matter what. 2. There is way more data out there about all of us than any of us can imagine. 3. The politicians don't seem capable of protecting us: if we don't start to object to this on a personal level by pushing back against organisations wanting to profile us, we are heading for increasingly totalitarian treatment by governments and corporations.
The long-term effect of making the film has been the most profound. I routinely question exchanges of data and information that most people don’t notice. This can be a pain – but it is also really liberating. And of course now I shred. A lot.
What was your wife's response when you told her about the project?
She was wonderful about the whole thing. Mostly. We'd planned the disappearance and locked the dates. Then a few days later we discovered that we had another kid on the way. At times I wondered whether she thought I was having some sort of male crisis – I remember her saying that she is sure a lot of guys would like to just disappear. Since it happened, though, she has really changed her views about the issue. She started off wondering what all the fuss was about, but now she's more on it than I am. I would not advise asking her for any personal details...
Do you think this exercise made you feel paranoid?
I'm normally not a paranoid type, but I really discovered that if you feel like you are being watched and you feel like you're being potentially judged, that is profoundly paranoia-inducing. But I hope that this is not a paranoia where I have delusions of persecution, or a tendency toward irrational suspiciousness and distrustfulness of others, but rather a sort of 'good' paranoia, where I'm much more informed about what's happening with data capture and profiling and much more aware of what I can do to resist this.
What are you hoping viewers will take away from your film?
I mainly want people to find the film entertaining, but if people who watch the film react against just one attempt by a company, or a government to capture or profile theirs or their family's data, I'd be a happy filmmaker. We're developing a supporting website, www.erasingdavid.com, where people can learn more about protecting their privacy.
Any lessons learned while making this movie?
Ask and it might happen. We asked Michael Nyman to do the music. It turned out he's a privacy campaigner and he said yes.
