Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity [REPORT]
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
Facebook and other social platforms are watching users’ chats for
criminal activity and notifying police if any suspicious behavior is
detected, according to a report.
The screening process begins with scanning software that monitors chats for
words or phrases that signal something might be amiss, such as an
exchange of personal information or vulgar language.
The software pays more
attention to chats between users who don’t already have a
well-established connection on the site and whose profile data indicate
something may be wrong, such as a wide age gap. The scanning program is
also “smart” — it’s taught to
keep an eye out for certain phrases found in the previously obtained
chat records from criminals including sexual predators.
If the scanning software flags
a suspicious chat exchange, it notifies Facebook security employees,
who can then determine if police should be notified.
Keeping most of the scanned
chats out of the eyes of Facebook employees may help Facebook deflect
criticism from privacy advocates, but whether the scanned chats are
deleted or stored permanently is yet unknown.
The new details about
Facebook’s monitoring system came from an interview which the
company’s Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan gave to Reuters.
At least one alleged child predator has been brought to trial directly
as a result of Facebook’s chat scanning, according to
Reuters’ report.
When asked for a comment,
Facebook only repeated the remarks given by Sullivan to Reuters:
“We’ve never wanted to set up an environment where
we have employees looking at private communications, so it’s
really important that we use technology that has a very low
false-positive rate.”
SEE
ALSO: State
Law Requires Sex Offenders to List Status on FacebookFacebook works with law
enforcement “where appropriate and to the extent required by
law to ensure the safety of the people who use Facebook,”
according to a page
on its site.
“We may disclose
information pursuant to subpoenas, court orders, or other requests
(including criminal and civil matters) if we have a good faith belief
that the response is required by law. This may include respecting
requests from jurisdictions outside of the United States where we have
a good faith belief that the response is required by law under the
local laws in that jurisdiction, apply to users from that jurisdiction,
and are consistent with generally accepted international standards.“We may also share
information when we have a good faith belief it is necessary to prevent
fraud or other illegal activity, to prevent imminent bodily harm, or to
protect ourselves and you from people violating our Statement of Rights
and Responsibilities. This may include sharing information with other
companies, lawyers, courts or other government entities.”
Indeed, Facebook has cooperated
with police investigations in the past. In April, it complied
with a police subpoena from the Boston Police Department by sending
printouts of wall posts, photos and login/IP data of a murder suspect.
Is Facebook doing a public
service by monitoring chats for criminal behavior? Share your thoughts
in the comments.
This is a repost from Alex Fitzpatrick
Image
courtesy of iStockphoto,
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