Self-styled internet ‘Auditors’ – When crimes against people are uploaded and unreported - By Ben Westwood.
(article continues below videos)
(Videos may take a few seconds to load)
“Can I ask, are you filming?” quotes a woman in her early fifties, sporting a high-visibility jacket and appearing with a look of concern as to why two men dressed like ninjas are walking around the work site and filming everything there.
“Yes, I’m making a documentary about buildings in the area and I’ve come here today to film your company” replies one of the mask-cladded ninja’s with an air of self-presumed authority.
“Who are you? And who are you working for?” asks the concerned woman having not being informed of any filming going on at the workplace that day.
“I work for myself, I run a Youtube channel” replies the man whilst speaking through his mask.
“I’m what some people call an auditor” he goes on.
Sadly, a situation that was once reserved for legitimate community concerns or actual hobby enthusiasts now seems to have metamorphosed into a current trend of self-proclaimed internet ‘Auditors’.
It’s a ‘movement’ that has been around for quite some time with its roots most likely originating from legitimately concerned citizens going out of their way to film events and educate their community. However, it seems in todays age it has transmuted at an alarming rate into what many people consider a purposeful effort to test other people’s personal rights and boundaries regarding privacy of being filmed and uploaded onto the internet.
A lot of the videos seen today seem to play out in a familiar pattern, which often starts with one or more ‘auditors’ or ‘audits’ approaching a building or worksite, and then entering the grounds before filming around the property, often holding their cameras up to the windows and filming into the building.
In what can be a typical example of many of these videos, a women can be seen approaching the front doors to speak to the man with the camera.
“Can you stop filming me please?” she asks. “I didn’t give you permission to film me”
“No, there’s nothing that you can do about it” replies the auditor.
“Where is this being uploaded to exactly” further asks the woman.
“That’s something I don’t have to tell you” replies the auditor, “but I would be on your best behaviour if I were you because my followers might give your company lots of bad reviews, or even get you fired.”
The audit movement on social media has got so popular that some of the people reading this may have presumed who I was referring to. Unfortunately, there is a good chance they could be wrong since the movement and it’s familiar patterns has mushroomed in scope both in the UK and USA among other countries.
More often than not the police are called after the auditors refuse numerous requests to leave the property, often choosing a lenient approach to these types of auditors, stating that as long as they move back onto the public boundary that they can film all they like. Even after huge amounts of time gets wasted because of concerned workers that have been challenging them, often the ‘auditor’ flouts his sense of victory to his viewers having now decided to fly his drone around the premises.
“But you haven’t even asked for any permission to film us” is a common quote heard in these type of videos, with those behind the camera often quoting laws to defend their agendas, which may not always be true despite the clear tone of presumed authority.
Often, concerned staff or workplace security bring up legitimate reasons as to why they choose not to allow just anybody to come walking in off the street with a camera and film certain areas of the building and it’s staff members.
It’s a sad state of affairs that those people, often labelled as ‘tyrants’, go on to be mocked in a sea of derogatory comments in videos hosted on various social media platforms that they themselves have been given no signposting at all to find. Some commentors on the videos even claim that they too intend to visit and film the same premises and its people after watching a ‘production’ that is now bizarrely acting as a legitimate form of entertainment online.
It’s a situation that leaves the common resolution of filing a data protection request almost impossible to put into place for those who are busy with the daily tasks and struggles of life and may not be so aware of the current forms of an ‘audit’ movement.
The consequences of such videos, which are being hosted and allowed on major online platforms, unfortunately are all too real. Not only are endless complaints put in about concerned staff members featured in them, in what often are attempts to get them fired, but some companies have had significant amounts of their time wasted.
One comment I found on a video where an auditor visited a used car showroom quoted something along the lines of “I’ve just gone on their website and wasted their time by booking a test drive in all one-hundred and fifty-seven of their cars.”
When I first became concerned about these forms of videos, I immediately noticed a safeguarding risk for not only any vulnerable people in public places whose images and footage may appear online with intricate details of their exact locations, but also significant risks to victims of domestic violence, especially those of stalking and harassment.
Unfortunately, my concerns turned out to be well-founded upon hearing that one woman in particular who’d been featured on an ‘audit’ video had moved locations after having an injunction placed on a previous abusive partner.
“You can all guess what happened after they filmed her and uploaded it” quoted my source.
It brings me a heavy heart to even think what I’m about to describe is being allowed to be hosted on some major platforms.
One ‘auditor’ in particular had caught my attention, and some of his videos raised some serious concerns as to our ability as a society to safeguard today’s young people, both from the perspective of an internet user or that of a social media company.
On one of his videos, he visits a NHS Covid testing site where a 17 year-old volunteer has come to ask him why he’s filming and taking photos of him and two other volunteers who can’t be seen well in the video.
“It’s to upload to a website that’s a bit like Grinder” the auditor answers.
Despite the viewers of the video being aware of some sort of inside joke, obviously, the young volunteer is confused. “Sorry, you can’t do that without our permission, it’s a bit creepy” the young volunteer goes on to say.
The auditor then states that there’s nothing any of them can do about it because they are out in public.
“Look you can’t do that without our permission, and plus, I’m seventeen, I’m a child!” the volunteer says. “And you’ve just said it’s to put on a website or something like Grinder.”
“Do you know what Grinder is?” the auditor asks.
“Yes I do” replies the volunteer, “it’s a dating app for gay men”
Having already voiced my concerns about today’s forms of audit movement’s complete irresponsibility in regards to security, for me this particular video spurred me on to take my concerns to a whole new level about the fact that social media too often allows this stuff. Thankfully, the parents of the young person featured in this video can be very proud of their son’s response as he bravely did a great job of telling the auditor where to go. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take away from the fact that he was actually at serious risk after being threatened by the middle-aged auditor who’d attempted to goad him into a fight.
The same auditor in fact has other questionable videos, which I don’t believe should be hosted in this day and age on major platforms.
In another, he approaches a young Portuguese labourer at a building site who I presumed was no older than twenty-three years old, but had been somewhat unaware of the auditors freaky games behind the confusing communication.
As usual, pointing the camera into his face, the auditor asks the labourer if his name is Andy.
“Andy, are you Andy?” the auditor asks .
“No, I’m not Andy” replies the labourer.
The auditor continues…. “Randy Andy? Off the site? I’m Naughty Nigel.”
“You’re name is Nigel?” replies the labourer, somewhat confused as to what the self-proclaimed auditor was saying. Unfortunately, he makes the mistake of politely replying with his name, which the auditor certainly does not forget. “I’m Davi” says the labourer. (name changed for anonymity)
“Yeah, I’m naughty Nigel, from the site” the auditor continues whilst they share a handshake.
“Which site” the young labourer asks.
“The gay site” replies the auditor whist the young labourer can been seen refuting it by shaking their head.
The auditor says several more times to the security guard “You’re Andy Randy” to what seemed a somewhat confused young lad who’d certainly not expected such a conversation to arise.
“You told me to meet you here?” the auditor states as the confused labourer continues to refute it.
“That’s what the message said, that you’d be wearing hi-viz, a radio and have a feather in your hat” continued the auditor whilst describing the labourer in front of him who by this point is looking clearly confused and embarrassed. The labourer replies that he had never sent him a message.
“Are you getting embarrassed in front of your workmates?” the auditor creepily asks, before sternly shushing at the labourer when he notices their friend across the road whistling at them and asking if they are OK.
“What the effs wrong with you mate?” says the labourer. Unfortunately, he still hadn’t noticed the auditors agenda by this point as he explained to his approaching friend that someone gave the auditor his description and told him to meet him here. The auditor then claims that it will likely be one of the labourers colleagues winding him up.
In a separate video clip on the same channel, it becomes obvious to anyone that had seen the previous video that the ‘auditor’ had in fact been hanging around the worksite for some time with their being a drastic change of light in the sky.
The auditor goads the labourer who is now behind the gates working, and explains that he is going to turn up tomorrow to film him again, referring to his first name.
“Just leave me the eff alone” pleads the frustrated young labourer, “I’m trying to do my job”
Once again, as is what happens in many of these sorts of videos the ‘auditor’ responds by claiming that he is stood on public properly having being outside of the gates, and can do what he likes. He continues to goad the young labourer who eventually gets so agitated that he unleashes an outburst that could have resulted in him losing his job if he hadn’t found his wisdom at the last moment. However, it is clear that in a lot of these videos that this is often one of the ‘audits’ main intentions.
Another video on his channel I personally found highly questionable, I think for legal reasons it wouldn’t be wise to put in writing, but as a parent I wasn’t alone in feeling uncomfortable at when and where the camera in this particular clip had been pointing.
In my conversations about these particular videos on Tiktok, I became shocked at how quickly those videos were defended, even by people I thought had knew better. Perhaps I hadn’t done myself any favours either having decided to call out one of the better-known public documenters – Charlie Veitch – who despite not being a self-appointed ‘auditor’, in my opinion does use some of the same invasive tactics when it comes to public filming. I did pull Charlie up on the fact that he had uploaded clips onto the internet which featured unblurred young people under the age of eighteen without asking for their permission to upload them. I’ll take this chance to stress again, that in that video I certainly wasn’t calling Veitch a paedophile, but wanted to stress that as an actual influential influencer, he himself should be more responsible with his approach to rights of privacy in regards to filming.
It was my perfect chance to raise these concerns publicly to a slightly wider audience. It brought me a lot of hate and many claim that I was just using Charlie to get my fifteen minutes of fame, but anybody who’s got to this point in the article likely knows that the statement itself holds no weight, with even one person who had commented that I ‘looked like a wrong un’ actually coming back to apologise after seeing more of my videos on this and to tell me to keep up the good work.
Even before some disgruntled commentors had expressed it to me, I’d already been aware of how sensitive the approach to dealing with these issues might be, especially as the audit movements main slogan is ‘PINAC’ which stands for – Photography Is Not a Crime.
I’d predicted before it happened that I’d be called a Nazi, and a supporter of suppression by the state.
“So you want to ban us filming our dogs in the park?” one person responded on one of my videos about the issue. “It’s not the one’s filming kids, but those preying on them” others replied.
Many more commented that it wasn’t a crime to film in public and that nobody has rights to privacy in public because it was the law. Something I’m highly concerned about when it comes to invasive ‘audit’ videos and the scope for perverts, predators, stalkers, exploiters and human traffickers to harvest the huge amounts of personal information now provided on major platforms by ‘audit’ videos.
Of course, I had my supporters, but I was truly surprised at how quickly many others had tried to shut me down with degrading comments about my hair or whatever they thought was going to get under my skin, quoting that why would Charlie Veitch listen to a ‘nobody’ like me.
I’ve not heard from Charlie Veitch as yet, and unsure if I ever will. Perhaps I’ll bump into him at a festival again or something, who knows. But I doubt with such a huge army of dedicated supporters that I’d be able to change his mind on people’s rights of privacy in public regarding some of his content, but nothing is impossible and that’s why I do what I do. It doesn’t have to sink in straight away, as long as the seed gets planted, and for others too.
I guess I have a lot of questions to those supporting the sort of content put out in todays world of self-appointed ‘audits’– Have we completely lost respect for those just trying to put bread on the table to feed their family and get their days work done?
And how on earth have we gone from being frustrated about the rights of privacy in a big brother state to actually defending an internet cult that seems more in line with the East German Stasi, who monitored all of their citizens constantly. Not with police officers or security guards with cameras, but through each other.
It is easy to quickly forget or emphasise with the many people that were never asked permission before being uploaded for many thousands of internet users to watch, slander and harass.
Without offending anyone, I see a senseless revolt in such a theme which is often directed at all of the wrong people.
I’m convinced that it’s nothing but complete poison and makes a complete mockery of legitimate activists and even hobbyists photographers and filmers.
What do ‘auditors’ really achieve by invading job centres, police stations, factories and other places. Many claim they do it to review the spending of public funding, and although a small number of productive outcomes have been achieved by such self-styled ‘audits’, I see it largely as nothing but a complete charade to enable many of them to constantly breach people’s personal boundaries, rights to privacy and an excuse to partake in psychological abuse.
I personally find the fact that mainstream social media companies profit from this completely sickening. Of course, what I don’t want to do is have my publicly-aired concerns help lead to any draconian laws, but equally it is obvious to me that not a single though is given from the majority of these ‘audits’ regarding safeguarding measures, which may raise an eyebrow in itself for some.
Despite those who would be quick to call me crazy, I still certainly don’t count out the fact that some of these ‘audits’ may possibly be on various forms of reconnaissance missions. My initial worries about the audit movement had been that it was some sort of foreign intelligence operation because of the huge amounts of sensitive sites, along with their staff being filmed and uploaded to Youtube. But now I’m equally concerned about the potential for stalkers, perverts and predators to harvest information from the many uploads.
Some of us hope that it’s just a fad, but it seems a precarious situation that in it’s form has the ability to poison the minds not only of the many young people on social media and video platforms, but also those that have fell out of society in some way and search for a group to belong to. There is certainly no offence intended when I point out that some of these self-appointed audits may have notable mental health conditions. But with this style of internet media seeming to grow and be hosted by well-known social media platforms, is the general mental health of our society now at a huge risk? If not the victims of stalking, harassment and psychological abuse that have come about from these videos.
By Ben Westwood 28th Sep 2024
You can help support my writing and campaigning at https://gofund.me/ef47f8c9
or by donating to paypal (much more convenient) at benwestwooduk@gmail.com
A huge thanks for any and all support.
Comments