Fourteen volunteers go on the run and try to avoid being found by professional trackers. Is it possible to go ‘off grid’?
That’s the serious point of a Channel 4 series, Hunted. Heading the team of ‘hunters’ was Brett Lovegrove, the former Met Police detective and head of counter terrorism at City of London Police, now a security consultant and CEO of the City Security and Resilience Networks (CSARN).
Ahead of the first one-hour episode on Thursday, September 10 from 9pm, Lovegrove told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I do think that people don’t know how difficult it is to disappear for 28 days,” that is, the period set by the television challenge.
“And it’s wholly possible in these days of information and the footprint that we create for ourselves to get caught. And the reason why is because we don’t take care of our information we put out there, sometimes really freely.”
How easy was it to track down the volunteers – who gave permission for their ‘footprint’, and that of their friends and family, to be accessed? Lovegrove said: “Without giving anything away, you have got to watch the series, it’s incredibly exciting, but there is an important point to this; it’s individuals not taking charge of our information and we really must.”
Each of the 14 being hunted had a cameraman following them. As for how the hunting was done, Lovegrove said: “We are mostly ex-police, some currently serving; and ex-Security Service. We don’t have state powers; I want to make that clear.” Mostly – scarily, Lovegrove added – the hunters were relying on open source information: “And that’s the scary bit.”
The hunters searched emails; and mobile phone data, ‘but for anybody malevolent with some knowledge and some open source information, it can be easy’.
For more on the ‘real life thriller’ visit – http://www.channel4.com/programmes/hunted/episode-guide.
See a trailer – http://www.channel4.com/programmes/hunted/videos/all/hunted-trailer-2.
