Episode 1

1/2. Aasmah Mir looks at how postcode profiling affects our lives, as she visits what new profiling research suggests is the wealthiest area in the UK. She meets local residents in this area of the Chilterns, in Buckinghamshire, and asks them what they think about being classified in this way. Especially when none of them realised it was possible to be identified like this.

Postcode profiling is a way of classifying all postcodes into neighbourhood 'types', from Lavish Lifestyles to Stressed Borrowers. This data can then be used by commercial companies for marketing purposes or by the government and public sector, for example to direct health education messages to the appropriate groups of people.

Aasmah Mir puts herself in the hands of the postcode profilers to find out what type of neighbourhood she lives in, and whether the data they crunch is accurate. What kind of people live where she does? And how do they spend their money?

Producer Beth O'Dea.