Erasing David

How much do the government and private corporations know about you? How much can they find out? And to what uses will they put this information? These are the questions posed in this chilling documentary that charts the unimaginable limits of the modern information state.

In order to discover how much privacy he has left, British actor-filmmaker David Bond (Pie in the Sky, Lions Are Green) sets out to disappear from his own life by hopping around random European locations in the U.K. and the continent. Leaving behind his pregnant wife, Katie, and their young daughter, as well as the conveniences of modern life, Bond tries to go completely underground.

But with a pair of topnotch private detectives — Duncan Mee and Cameron Gowlett, hired by Bond himself! — on his trail using all the information that the surveillance society has made available, Bond finds his task far trickier than he imagined. He learns, among other disturbing things, that every phone call he has made, every bill he has paid and every website he has visited provide vital information to someone determined to find him.