Privacy Wake-Up: Say NO to Data Scraping, Fake Profiles and Fabricated Judgements

People who identify as 'Targeted Individuals' (TIs) are already fully aware of what it means to have your privacy and your life not just invaded, but completely taken over and destroyed. TI's online report on everything; from in home surveillance and vehicle bugging through to online hacking and synchronised encounters.

TIs already know what it feels like to have malicious things made up about them which simply aren't true. They know what it feels like to have their characters and reputations ferociously destroyed. Many TIs comment online comment how "fake profiles" are being used and built against them as a way to continue the unwarranted and illegal surveillance of them both at their homes and outside of their homes.

But even people who are non-targeted are slowly waking up to how their their fundamental rights to privacy are being slowly eroded and taken away from them through the back door.

Recent newspaper articles in the press already raise the prospect of super-databases, both in the UK and elsewhere, which will be used to collate peoples information. People are slowly waking up to the fact that way they say and what they do - even down to the way they act (such as what things they buy in the shop or online) and even the way they look (so that this information can be fed into facial recognition cameras) - is starting to undermine their fundamental rights to privacy. Indeed, recent newspaper articles have highlighted numerous cases of both men and women in shops who have been falsely misidentified by incorrect systems.

Creating personas and watchlists from erroneous data represents one of the gravest threats to humanity as we know it and to the ordinary lives that we live and are supposed to live.

When systems - whether private retail facial recognition databases, government surveillance tools, or commercial AI aggregators - silently compile inaccurate or misattributed information about individuals, they fabricate digital doppelgängers that can override reality itself.

An innocent person wrongly flagged as a shoplifter, a protester misidentified as a rioter, or a citizen wrongly labeled as a security risk can suddenly find doors closed, jobs lost, travel restricted, friendships strained and destroyed, and reputations poisoned. Not because of anything they did or said. But because of a flawed algorithm or a careless or intended entry by someone which subsequently decided that they are.

These synthetic identities accumulate weight over time. They can influence credit decisions, insurance premiums, employment screening, housing applications, school admissions, and even police encounters, often without the individual ever knowing the error exists or having any meaningful recourse to correct it.

In the worst cases, certainly as experienced by targeted individuals, erroneous watchlists lead to lives upended and destroyed - all built on fabricated data that was never true.

Humanity as we know it depends on the assumption that people are judged by their actual actions in the real world, not by invisible, unaccountable, and incorrect shadow entries and shadow versions of themselves. When these shadow entries and shadow versions gain real power, the real life as we know it - spontaneous, imperfect, redeemable - now becomes conditional and controlled by the mercy of error-prone machines and the humans who choose to enforce those incorrect and unaccountable assumptions without question.

At

TargetedIndividuals.co.uk

, we already advocate for having innocent individuals removed from watchlists and blacklists via our

Change Petition

which has garnered several signatures since Christmas and continues to gain good traction. Watchlists and blacklists are no longer just regional. They are international. People can't even move to escape them because they simply follow the person to their new destination.

Then, there's the added complication of online user groups and apps. These groups and apps allow users to share and post incorrect information about a person, or persons, to many other users at the single touch of a button. This information can be seen by hundreds, if not thousands, within popular groups. Information such as this can be instantly believed by the people who read it. An innocent person can be deemed 'guilty' by a group of chat group users, even though that person has done nothing wrong and has no way to defend themselves as they know nothing about it.

So, join us today as we say "No" to our data and our lives being used for purposes which were never meant to be. You are meant to live your life. Not to have it controlled, watched and destroyed by others. You are meant to enjoy your life - to live in peace and with love and care for your fellow humans.

Start by saying "No" to the scraping of your data and the creation of fake profiles and fabricated judgements in your name by others. Post something on your timelines today, or pin a statement at the top of them, to say you do not consent to your data or information being used about you in any shape or form.

On Social Media

I do NOT consent to my social media profile being scraped to create a fake profile on me. Creating fake profiles using my photos or identity is identity theft/impersonation. I do not authorise any scraping or reuse of my content for such purposes.

Just because I "like" a post on social media it doesn't mean to say that I LIKE it. It might mean "I saw this", or "I'm acknowledging receipt", "that's wild", or even "this is so wrong" - I am liking it to show the person who posted it that I've seen it.

A "Follow" doesn't mean I endorse that person's social media profile. It doesn't mean I'm a fan, or that I like them, or that I agree with them and support them. People often follow accounts they disagree, or to stay informed about something, perhaps for research purposes, maybe for plain curiosity, or just because the algorithm shoved them in the feed and they followed it. I have over 10,000 followers and I have NOT personally seen or visited a lot of the accounts that I follow.

"Posting" something doesn't mean it's my genuine belief or my own personal endorsement about the thing I've just posted. People post jokes, hypotheticals, devil's advocate takes, quotes they find interesting (even if wrong), memes, venting in the moment, or content to fit a persona/group at that moment in time. People post for all sorts of reasons - such as to get a response or someone else's opinion. They post a whole range of things - from nature to food, from politics to news. Just because they post a photo of a red rose, it doesn't automatically mean they like red roses! They may hate red roses - but they may like the picture.

"Reposting" and sharing something does not mean "I stand by every word", but sometimes "look at this nonsense", "food for thought", "worth debating", or just pure sarcasm that gets lost without the full thread.

"Saving" or "Bookmarking" a post often means "this is useful info I might need later" (like a recipe, article, or controversial take), not that "I support this view" or that this view "represents me."

Who I interact with online (replies, quotes etc) doesn't reveal my "inner circle". I don't have an "inner circle". On social media, most of my responses are fleeting and one-off in response to people who show up in my feed.

Low engagement on my posts doesn't mean I'm boring or unpopular just as high engagement on my posts doesn't prove popularity or quality. So many other things - from how the algorithms bury or promote your content, through to how many people are online that night and whether your audience is active or not - often dictate the response to something.

On the Web

I do not consent to any tracking, logging, or collection of my online visits, web page views, browsing history, search queries, clicks, scrolls, or time spent on sites to create a behavioral profile, interest graph, predictive model, or synthetic "fake profile" representing me. My digital footsteps are not implied permission for surveillance capitalism.

Just because I visit a web page does not mean I like, agree with, endorse, support, or even approve of its content. A single click or extended session can stem from countless innocent or neutral reasons: I might be conducting research for my work, my journalism, or my own personal curiosity; fact-checking a claim I disagree with; reading opposing viewpoints to strengthen my own argument; investigating misinformation to report or debunk it; comparing products before deciding against a purchase; helping a friend or family member understand something; or simply landing there accidentally via a search result, a link in an email, or algorithmic recommendation I never asked for.

These visits are fragments of exploration, not declarations of identity or belief. Yet when scraped, tracked, and aggregated into profiles - they can be routinely misinterpreted as evidence of affinity, intent, or character. A momentary glance at a controversial article becomes “proof” of radicalisation; a visit to a health-information site infers a diagnosis; browsing job listings signals financial distress. This leap from neutral navigation to fabricated narrative strips away context, punishes intellectual freedom, and turns innocent curiosity into a risk. My web history is not a manifesto - it is a private map of questions, not answers - and I do NOT consent to letting assumptions rewrite it as one.

In Chat Groups / Messaging Apps Etc

I do not consent to any information about me - my name, photos, location, conversations, opinions, habits, relationships, health details, political views, or any other personal data about me - being shared, posted, forwarded, screenshotted, discussed, analysed, or archived in any chat groups, messaging apps, social platforms, private communities, or online forums without my explicit, informed, and revocable permission for each specific instance. My personal information is mine alone to share or withhold, and any unauthorised disclosure violates that boundary.

Offline

I do not consent to any offline or ambient collection of my voice, conversations, movements, or surroundings through microphones, cameras, sensors or devices to build a profile, shadow profile, behavioural model, or “fake version” of me. My home, my car, my devices and my personal space are not your data farms.

I explicitly withhold consent for my audio environment - every word spoken in my presence, every background noise, every cough or laugh - to be recorded, processed, analysed, or stored by always listening assistants, smart home devices, phones, laptops, wearables, or security cameras for the purpose of inferring my habits, emotions, relationships, health, opinions, or identity.

I do not consent to facial recognition, gait analysis, posture tracking, or any visual capture of my body or face (intentional or incidental) being used offline or uploaded to create a digital twin, inferred demographic profile, emotional state model, or predictive behavioural dossier about me.

My daily routines, locations within my home, patterns of movement, sleep sounds, breathing, or any other sensor-derived signals are not public or implied-consent data. I revoke any blanket permission companies claim through vague ToS clauses and demand that passive, always-on collection of my offline life stops.

I do not consent to my conversations - private discussions with family, friends, partners, or even myself - being passively collected and harvested by nearby devices to train AI models, improve algorithms, detect “sensitive topics,” or construct any form of synthetic or augmented profile representing “me”.

My offline life is not your data, your training data or your fake profile creation data. I do not consent to third parties using microphones and cameras in my environment to secretly map my world, predict my behaviour, categorise my personality, or fabricate a version of “who I am” based on fragments of sound and sight I never intended to share.

Final Words

Scraped data creates highly inaccurate profiles from hugely incomplete signals and data.

Real people are contradictory, context-dependent, sarcastic, evolving, and can change their mood and opinions like the wind. People often use platforms in ways that defy simple categorisations.

If you are getting paid to scrape my information or to create a fake profile or dossier about me, here is a message for you - Please go and find proper work. Go and work in a bank. Go and work in a restaurant. Anything. As long as its proper work and genuine work. Go and rediscover your morals - give up your seat on the bus to someone who needs it, or help an elderly lady with her shopping get across the road safely. Stop coming up with false, make-believe and fantastical stories about people you've never met and don't even know.

If you are trying to gain inferences about things such as my political stance, my consumer habits or any other such personal traits - you are wasting your time! I've changed political parties three times in the past three years. My shopping habits change like the wind. One week I like Weetabix, the next week I don't! Although, for the record, I do like cushioned toilet paper and i'm a bit partial to rum!

In the end, the real danger isn't just the inaccuracy of these scraped shadows - it's the arrogance. The arrogance of assuming a few likes, clicks, or fleeting visits can ever capture the living, breathing, ever-shifting complexity of a human being. You cannot reduce a person to data points any more than you can bottle the wind or pin down a dream.

So to anyone still building these brittle, fake dossiers or fabricated judgements: stop playing god with fragments of other people's lives. Delete the fake profiles you've helped create, turn off the scrapers, and step back into the real world where people are messy, contradictory, and gloriously unknowable. There you'll find something far more valuable than any profile - actual human connection, earned through actually listening and getting to know someone, not surveilling.

If you'd like to read more articles like this, and to read about our continuing research into the harassment experiences experienced by people who identify as targeted individuals, please have a browser through our website.

Thankyou for reading ❤️