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IPFS News Link • Surveillance

How the super-rich are making their homes 'invisible'

• http://www.ft.com, Kate Allen

Estate agents' advertisements show that the high-end Californian home — six bedrooms, pizza oven, pool — is situated in a gated community on the edge of Los Angeles. Yet prospective buyers searching online to check out the neighbourhood are wasting their time — none of the area's 648 homes appear on Google Street View.

All that online maps show of the area are street routes and names — what could perhaps be an outline plan for a future housing development. But anyone looking for a kerbside view of the property will find no evidence of it.

The community's name gives a clue why: it is called Hidden Hills. What the area's occupants — who reportedly include Kim Kardashian, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber and Jennifer Lopez — value above all is privacy. That includes banning Google's photography vehicles from entering (and declining to talk to the FT; a spokeswoman for the area's management company said it had a policy of not giving interviews to the press).


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