snooping on facebook

A private detective writes, rather charmingly, about how Facebook presents him with a conflict between being a normal person with friends, and an information predator:

Of course, I assured my new Facebook friends I will respect their privacy, because that’s what friends do.

But being an investigator makes the duality of uses for these media much more pronounced, because, bluntly put, it is an investigator’s job to pry into people’s quasi-private lives and use that information against them. In other words, there is good reason to be wary of befriending an investigator on Facebook when it comes to concern about one’s privacy. To illustrate my point, I had lunch with one of my business partners a few weeks ago, and we discussed a recent case where he used a Twitter search to identify a witness in an assault at a private event. The witness tweeted about the assault as it happened, and identifying this person and subsequently searching his Facebook page helped my partner find the party’s entire guest list. Naturally, much interviewing and subpoenaing ensued—and once again social media played a critical role in an investigation.

My partner’s case is not unusual. Tweets and status updates are now standard fodder for investigators throughout the country. In fact, I would venture to say that social media plays some role in the majority of cases now investigated by my company. It is in this light that I grew accustomed to viewing social media like a lion might see a grassland panorama. Where most people probably see sunshine and frolicking gazelles, I just saw one big hunting ground, complete with personal information about subjects that can’t be found anywhere else.