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Credit checks and renting history are so old-fashioned. The new hotness, for our benevolent landlord class, is rifling through your private social media accounts – at least if one new startup has its way.
[Washington Post: Creepy startup will help landlords, employers and online dates strip-mine intimate data from your Facebook page]
Dystopian new service Tenant Assured enables prospective landlords to request login access to your Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – yep, even your private message history! – to see what they can learn about you. And what, pray tell, could possibly be the problem with that?
But rest easy, London. Rather than permitting your would-be landlord to rummage manually through your selfies, bants and sexts, your social history is instead downloaded and analysed by an all-seeing and surely totally-reliable algorithm, which detects red-flag language like 'no money', 'poor', 'staying in', and, in a big fuck-you to both you and your unborn child, 'pregnant'.
© Tenant Assured
Yes, it is ‘optional’, but if it catches on, opting-out might one day be as disqualifying as refusing to hand over your bank details. Perhaps it's only a matter of time until any self-respecting flathunter prepares with a few months of faux-minted Facebook posting: 'current mood: rich', 'I've got so much money I just pooed out a fifty pound note' and 'CASH! I LOVE ALL MY CASH! MONEY RICHES WEALTH! BANK BALANCE VERY GOOD'
And with the forthcoming sister product Recruit Assured, employers may soon have the same ability too. Hey: maybe the ludicrously transparent drug euphemisms you use on Facebook Messenger weren't such a stupid idea after all!
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