Printed from www.pcpro.co.uk
Posted on July 7th, 2009 by Barry Collins
Is 192.com Britain’s most invasive website?
We’re constantly warned by security experts not to divulge detailed personal information about ourselves on websites. Well, now we don’t have to, because the recently revamped 192.com is doing it for you. And then selling it on for as little as 35p per record.
192.com collates information from various public records and databases – electoral rolls, phone directories, Companies House – and then packages them altogether in one convenient lump.
Simply type in someone’s name and their rough location and you’re near instantly presented with a staggeringly detailed record of that person. You’ll get their full name and address, their telephone number and age (if they have a record at Companies House). You’ll also get the full name of any other adults who live in their house, as well as details of how long they’ve each lived in the property (gleaned from the electoral roll) and how much the house is worth.
If any of the occupants are registered as directors at Companies House, you can get their director information, including company names, addresses and telephone numbers. So now you’ve got the full set of details for someone’s work and home.
Scroll down a bit and you’ll also find full details of the person’s neighbours, including their full names and addresses and telephone numbers. Why would anyone want such information for legitimate purposes? In case your elderly mother wasn’t answering her phone and you wanted to contact her friend next door, was the best reason 192.com could come up with when I asked them.
IDENTITY FRAUD
192.com insists none of this information is of any real use to fraudsters. “The sort of data we use here is not the data used to validate transactions of any sort,” Dominic Blackburn, new technology director at 192.com told me.
True, you might not be able to apply for a credit card in someone else’s name using just the information provided by 192.com, but it would certainly give you a pretty good head start. And as Davey Winder pointed out in our recent feature on ID theft, the more information you have on someone, the easier it is to hunt them down on sites such as Facebook, MySpace or personal blogs where you can get more. Combine the person’s birthday from their Facebook profile with their age from 192.com, for example, and you’ve got their date of birth.
The ease of such data harvesting techniques is why organisations such as the Government-backed Get Safe Online warns you not to reveal too much personal data online. “Be wary of publishing any identifying information about yourself. In particular things like: phone numbers, pictures of your home, workplace or school, your address, birthday or full name,” the site advises in its safe social networking section. Too late. 192.com’s done it for you.
Still the company insists it’s not compromising your safety. “If I was a fraudster I wouldn’t want to use a site like 192.com, because every search they perform is logged,” Blackburn told us. “We’ve been doing this for ten years, and we’ve never had any actual problems.”
TASTE OF ITS OWN MEDICINE
So, we decided to take 192.com at its word. If it’s not worried about the potential privacy implications of publishing such rich profiles, perhaps we should reveal what we managed to find about the man who runs the company.
Whilst Dominic Blackburn was demonstrating his new site to us, he used the profile of 192.com’s founder and CEO, Alastair Crawford, to demonstrate some of the site’s features. Using information gleaned from Mr Crawford’s 192.com profile, we’ve been able to build up a fairly detailed profile of his personal life, using only information and resources that are freely available on the web.
The first thing we learnt was that 40-year-old Mr Crawford lives at an address in Fulham, London, along with what we presume is his wife, in a property that was worth £495,000 when it was purchased in 2000. (Curiously, Dominic Blackburn used to live at the same address some years ago).
Using Google Street View, we’re able to get this detailed picture of Mr Crawford’s house, which clearly shows that he’s a Sky satellite customer (which might be useful information for someone attempting to steal his identity) and that his house is protected by a burglar alarm.
Which is probably just as well, because by looking up the director’s information on both him and his wife, they’re clearly busy people. He’s listed as a director of no less than three companies (Vouched Network Ltd, Wasabi Online Ltd and I-C D Publishing, the parent company of 192.com), while his 38-year-old wife is listed as a writer at Lexington Public Affairs Ltd and a broker at AMC Capital.
Entering both their names into a Google search produces his profile on social-networking site, Wasabi (which, as we know, he’s a director of). Here we can find the names of his friends, pictures of his holidays in Cyprus and Mexico and the rather unusual revelation that he went to the same school as the singer James Blunt (at this point, we’re not sure who we feel the most sorry for).
A quick search on Wikipedia reveals that James Blunt went to the Harrow School, and a subsequent search for “Alastair Crawford” and “Harrow School” produces a site listing one Alastair Crawford among the 1987 alumni – which roughly tallies with the age we gleaned from his 192.com profile.
So after not much more than 10 minutes, we’ve managed to discover Mr and Mrs Crawford’s age, home and work addresses, telephone numbers, photos of his home and holidays, details of his friends, his school and much more besides. And we’re bumbling amateurs, not professional identity thieves.
Mr Crawford might not be bothered about this information being public: I suspect you might be.
Tags: 192.com, Get Safe Online, identity theft
Posted in: Newsdesk
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28 Responses to “ Is 192.com Britain’s most invasive website? ”
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July 7th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Nice work. I hope this gets picked up.
July 7th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
This is alarming! I knew this information was out there, but it’s shocking to see how quickly and easily it can be discovered.
July 7th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
is your problem with 192 or street view or wikipedia or wasabi or google in general … or … the internet?
better title for this article might have been “The Internet: World’s Most Invasive Tool?” as you seem to have used 5 or 6 different tools to find the info you were after.
July 7th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
As a director of a company I was always aware of what public information about me was available. I mean, that’s simply something you have to accept if you want to be director of a company in the UK.
It’s pretty easy to find this stuff out without using 192.com
What surprises me is that all this is news to anybody.
July 7th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
As a director of a company of course you knew this information was available, and I will go so far as to assume as the director of a company you are slightly more knowledgeable about a lot of things than Joe public.
What concerns me is the number of people who will stumble across this in a search for a telephone number and will quickly realise the vast amount of information they can glean so easily.
I am not a paranoid person, I love the internet-it is how I make a living, I was a champion of Google Street View and many other tools which have sparked controversy. What bothers me so much about this is quite simply how unnecessary it is. 192.com is no longer a directory- it is a private detective service.
It is completely invasive. I also hope this gets picked up, after the drama over Street View I can’t wait to hear 192 defend this.
July 7th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Exactly which bits of this public information do you think ought to be censured? Or is it just that 192 has packaged dome of it together?
July 7th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
This sites been around for years, they’ve simply given it a makeover. But hey, 10/10 for being able to use things like the internet to put this highly insightful piece together.
This article proves nothing bar the fact that yes, there is a lot of data on the internet about everyone which can be acquired from various websites.
July 7th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Wow! Not only is the author an excellent amateur private detective, he’s an excellent rookie researcher and he’s doing a good job as an amateur blog writer!
You people are moaning and screaming for privacy yet come to the Internet because you want the convenience of information at your fingertips. Well hey, guess what? There’s a market for people who want your information too!
The beauty of listening to one mans biased ranting in a blog means that you get to focus misdirected anger at one place rather than the other 15 companies who will also sell you the same information as long as you have a credit card.
As an advocate of privacy. I’m thankful that companies like 192 are regulated by UK law because once data heads trans-border, you really will have a reason to be worried!
You’re caught on CCTV about 30 times a day, your mobile phone company know exactly where you are, your usage on this site (and most other sites) is tracked from the moment you clicked on a link to come into the site and all subsequent actions you performed after this are recorded for some marketing spod to “improve your experience”. In the mean time you’re demographicallly profiled and given a credit score based on your spending patterns, which are encouraged by the people who analyse your spending habits based on data from your store loyalty cards.
At what point do you consider things invasive and decide to shut the stable door behind that horse who has long since bolted?
July 8th, 2009 at 12:34 am
just checked myself out on there and the information is nearly a decade out of date so much much use to anyone really
July 8th, 2009 at 7:22 am
Elsewhere, I’m a local councillor and my name and number is plastered all over my ward. I’m sure it’s realatively easy to find more details about me – although I have a very common first/last name combination.
The information is out there, whether in physical books or online – so what? We live in a global village. It’;s up to each individual to make sure that their bank codes, mobile phone key words etc are kept secret and random.
July 8th, 2009 at 7:33 am
But that s all publically accessible information. When are all you failed journalist and ill prepared thinkers going to stop writing poorly considered articles about privacy and idenity theft and start actually talking about the Emperors clothes which is the lack of actual security and authentication provided by banks and financial services.
Identity is not the same as authority and we should be paying the price for poorly considered authentication routines.
July 8th, 2009 at 7:38 am
It’s worth pointing out that all the information gleaned from 192.com is happily surrendered by the person it relates to, as was the information that Barry Collins gained from other internet sources.
The Electoral Role permits you to opt out of your information being public and therefore unavailable to 192.com and others. As pointed out, if you wish to be a company director this information has to be public, but no one is forced into holding such a status. And we all happily share details of who we are, who we know and what we do on social networks ourselves.
Yes, this information can be used against you by the unscrupulous. But it can also benefit you. I have previously used internet resources to successfully prove that someone new to me as a contact was lying about who they were and where they lived before they had managed to abuse the trust they had gained. And this was several years before the “revelation” in this article.
There are as many benefits to this information being available as there are downsides. Factor in that almost all of it is published WITH our consent I am unsure why it’s quite the big deal everyone is making out.
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
July 8th, 2009 at 8:21 am
I fully accept the information that sites such as 192.com provide is available elsewhere. But before sites such as this existed, you’d have to go to town halls, libraries or several different websites to find them.
192.com also allows you to piece together information that you might not have previously. So, taking the example of Mr Crawford, I would have no easy way of finding out the name of his wife, let alone whether she was a company director or not, without randomly ploughing through electoral rolls or Companies House records. This site presents the data on a plate.
I also don’t believe that many people know about the opt-out of personal information on the electoral roll. So simply by voting, many people are handing over personal data that is being sold on by the Government, while another Government-backed website warns against handing out such information!
Barry Collins
July 8th, 2009 at 8:44 am
I could quite easily find out the name of Mr Crawford’s wife, using information accessible over the internet via ancestry.co.uk, which has a database of marriages from 1984-2005, including locations and months. I could search through local papers from the past few years to try to find a short article on their marriage. I could probably get a copy of their marriage certificate, from gro.gov. I could get detailed information on the company from Companies House direct, without leaving my desk.
If you allow information about yourself to be published online: if you’ve let your phone get mentioned in the Phone Book; if you’ve let your mobile phone be in mobile118.co.uk; if you’ve ticked or not ticked the box on the electoral roll form which asks whether you want to be on the public register or not; if you’ve founded a company and used your home address as the company registered address; if you’ve uploaded data to facebook or myspace or any other social networking site, and allowed even some of that information to be seen publicly, then you cannot, in any way, complain when this information is accessed.
Barry, you say “I also don’t believe that many people know about the opt-out of personal information on the electoral roll.” It’s right there, on the form. It’s easy to read, they don’t try to hide it. If you fill in a form without checking every part of it, you deserve what you get. People are so quick to complain about sites like this making freely available, public information easy to find, and yet seem to abdicate all responsibility in protecting their data themselves.
July 8th, 2009 at 8:46 am
Barry – You don’t know the name of his wife. You know the name of his sister. Check your facts!
July 8th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
What people quite clearly seem to be ignoring here is that yes, technically I could find out every single detail about someone if I trawled through a number of websites….which most people wouldn’t!
The issue with this is that it is right there with one click, and again people- completely unnecessarily! Is there one good reason why this information should be in an online directory? Honestly!
July 8th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Jane’s got the point here. It’s not the simple bits of information, it’s the synthesis of all of them together, and how idly you can look them up, that matters. aboutus,org is another example of how synthesis makes life more exposed – lots of people who registered their own domains and neglected to make them private, have suddenly found themselves presented on Google via aboutus’ HTTP presentation of domain lookup services.
And while mr DbleA vents his spleen, he might want to stop off and consider the point that “egulated by UK law” basically means “you have no chance of influencing them when it comes to your data…”
July 9th, 2009 at 7:28 am
It’s stand up and be counted; or thought ill of, for being secretive.
If you have nothing to hide and need the security of being believed
all the time, tell the truth; hide nothing; an open book. If anyone steals
your identity, they show themselves for what they are, a crook.
A different “game” (like the Paul Newman film – Without malice.) can
be destructive for everyone. If you dig a grave, dig two, one for yourself.
Rather a needless waste of a life. If you want to be entertaining….
i.e. an effective and troublesome route is to create a new ficticious,
identity each time you enter your details into any online form. e.g.
Mr C. Gull, Seaview, The Ridge, Clift Terrance, Homeland on Sea. C1 4ME
A new identity every day; will that cause some confusion among the
record keepers! Oh, what games we could play.
This sword has many edges; do we need to be believed? Do we need
to know the true details of others – at some time? Is there ANY white feet
in this tribe? At all? In this infectious method of record mis-direction?
I think total transparency is the best option, – if no one abuses it;
but, that makes another story, sorry. Life goes on.
July 9th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Couldn’t find anything about myself, except possibly for the ‘x birth records’ and I am unwilling to pay to see. But I suppose its all part of the traces of ourselves we leave everywhere, scientists in the future would be looking not at fossils but at ancient servers because they can find out more from the information therein.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Thankfully the website is terrible when it comes to flats.
Apparently I live with my neighbour and not my wife. I think I should sue the site for defamation by suggesting I’m having an affair with a man.
July 9th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Isn’t there a responsibility under the data protection act for information like this to be accurate?
I can find plenty of examples of incorrect information
July 9th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
My mother died in 2001 and she is listed on this website!
July 9th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Just checked out details on my company and the website listed against the entry for my company is a page from another directory service. It’s not my company’s website; it lists 6 companies; none of them mine.
One of the companies I work for uses a trading name that is not a limited company but on 192.com it is listed as a limited company at the wrong address.
July 12th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
I’ve just checked information regarding my family members on this 192.com site.
First, I know that my wife has ticked the box regarding privacy on the electoral register, and we have an Xdir phone, and do not give our home phone number out to anyone as we have a small business and give out that number whenever asked.
In this day and age and with someone breaking into our bank accounts a few years ago, we’re very cautious now.
Yet, this information was available fully on 192.com. I don’t understand how you can be cautious, and them still publish the information unless someone hasn’t done their job well, or it has been obtained dishonestly.
So, how do we check? How does 192 verify with us that our information “should” be shared, when we specifically opt out when signing certain documents or providing our private information in forms etc.
Why is it always that “Big Brother” is always fast to grab, but not protect those that feel invaded? I think its about time “Big Brother” had to answer to all of us, and possibly a few lawsuits where fraud has occured, and places such as this were the tools used to accomplish it. Surely collusion is still a crime?
July 13th, 2009 at 9:13 am
That the information is available is understandable. What is exceptionally difficult to understand is the difficulty in dealing with institutions when there is a problem. No one will help you when a fraudster uses your name and address to take out a loan in your name, all of them arguing that it is your fault.
July 14th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Funny I stumbled upon this article. I wrote one two days ago about eerie 192 and that idiotic mobile number directory 118 800 that is about to be launched.
I must say I am surprised by the lack of controversy surrounding 192.com. After I found out about it I was seriously blown away. Especially as you read one hollow article after the other about “privacy” and then details can be accessed so easily!
Why would I want anybody to know names and surnames of those who lived with me in 2003? What purpose would that serve?
Here’s my thoughts on Hagley Road to Ladywood
http://mymarilyn.blogspot.com/2009/07/privacy-and-technology-rant.html
August 14th, 2009 at 7:17 am
Drop by. Nice Blog.
November 19th, 2009 at 2:07 am
Thank you 192 my daughter now has a stalker. They have told him her address, how to get there and phone number. `how can this be legal? do we as citizens have no rights? This is all so some greedy bastard can make money at other peoples misery.