SXSW Review: Erasing David

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Just how much privacy do we have these days? Director David Bond decides to find out on a personal level by attempting to disappear for 30 days in the documentary Erasing David.

With a wife and child at home, he plans to leave home and avoid two trained investigators who will try to chase him down. In the beginning, Frank M. Ahearn, privacy consultant and co-author of How to Disappear (Volume 1) advises Bond of ways he can be tracked and just how easily surveillance can be initiated. But the comical interludes with Ahearn set up some very real and understandable paranoia. 

Erasing David picks up where Ondi Timoner's We Live in Public leaves off -- instead of choosing to live in public and seeing the results, Bond focuses on a relatively ordinary life and how invasive the lack of data privacy is within the Information Age.

This isn't a video blog on someone's meanderings, or experiments on evading data hunters. Bond makes the effort to explore the history of electronic surveillance and databases with sensitive personal information that can be exploited, and victim's of identity issues related to information stored in databases. Told in nonlinear fashion, the evolution of the concept is mixed with Bond's evasion of the investigators.

Instead of overwhelming us with all the systems stripping us of our privacy, Bond makes it a very personal story, which makes it more accessible than the information overload of biometrics and datamining. He also tracks how much personal information is being stored by several government and commercial organizations, not only on himself, but his young child. To his credit, Bond doesn't focus on identity theft, but does include stories of identity mistakes due to database related errors.

Bond apparently isn't thinking like someone truly trying to hide, which is a bit frustrating to anyone who's familiar with modern crime dramas.  Giving in to paranoia and a few bouts of melodrama, Bond explores the psychological cost of living completely off the grid and beyond electronic documentation. The fact that Bond has young and growing family makes the prospect even more complicated. 

While some moments seem rather contrived, ultimately Erasing David forces the audience to consider how careless they are about their personal data and how important their privacy may be. Bond and co-director Melinda McDougall  point out the downsides to both complacency and paranoia while making it clear people need to decide the value of privacy.

Erasing David screens again at SXSW on Tuesday, March 16 and is available now as VOD on iTunes and Amazon. Starting April 1, the film will be available on demand through major cable providers.