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British Police Use Facebook to Gather Evidence
Amy Bennett writes "Move over police scanner and most-wanted poster. The Greater Manchester Police force has created a Facebook application to collect leads for investigations. The application delivers a real-time feed of police news and appeals for information. A 'Submit Intelligence' link takes a Facebook user to the police Web site where they can anonymously submit tips. Another link leads to the videos on YouTube featuring information on the police force, ongoing investigations and other advisories." As reader groschke writes, though, "Their access to user data raises significant civil liberties problems. They may be able to see more of your data than your friends or network members can — and you also expose your friends' data when you add the application. All without needing a subpoena or warrant."
They may be able to see more of your data than your friends or network members can -- and you also expose your friends' data when you add the application
Unless Facebook has given these people a special little hack into their API they can't get any more then any other facebook app can, and depending on your privacy settings, can turn out to be not much at all.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Dear god no! You reveal information to a public web site, and the police can read it without a warrant!
I'm as slippery slope as the next guy, but I see a huge difference between information placed on Facebook and limitles wiretaps. Or unreasonable searches. Or your passenger having $10 in pot can lead to the police taking, and selling, your car.
If you're trying to dodge an arrest warrant, well, perhaps you shouldn't be posting on Facebook, or driving erratically, or advertising on TV, or accepting that offer for free (insert whatever tickets/crap the police come up with).
If you really object, you could, y'know, not install it in the first place.
I might give it a look, if only to get a handle on what all the knee jerk armchair reactionists are complaining about
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
Somehow I have my doubts that any "anonymous" tips would really be all that anonymous...
Alright, we obviously don't understand what either of these are.
A subpoena is a court order for information. If you are able to provide it and don't, there will be trouble. This doesn't mean such information can't be handed over voluntarily at any time.
A warrant grants a privilege to the police to forcibly obtain information they would otherwise not be allowed to obtain through force. But you don't need a warrant when you have cooperation.
The best example I could give probably is this: you need a warrant to tap someone's phone line. You *don't* need a warrant to put a microphone on an undercover agent and try to cajole the information out of the guy, or to bug a hotel room and arrange a meeting there, or to go knocking door to door at the guy's neighbors' houses making inquiries.
Your problem should be with "Facebook" who is currently selling out its homies to cash in as an informant.
Since this is obviously suppose to be about helping the police catch criminals, I fail to see the problem here..
You add the application, and you give it a bunch of permissions. You don't like that? Don't add it. End of story, now shut up.
I make websites and stuff. Buy one.
i'm not seeing how this is a privacy or civil rights issue. how about these people put their efforts to a better cause.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
So now children on Facebook will assume that it is safe to give information to a person who poses as a policeman or someone who has a similar logo. Children should not be asked to defend themselves. Let the police do their own work. I guess it gives them an excuse to browse the internet while they are having a donut. Yep Sarge, this pron site has lots of leads.
I'm as much a civil libertarian as the next guy, but let's get one thing straight:
Nobody has any expectation of privacy (reasonable or otherwise) in information they put on a website that is publicly accessible to other people.
If you write on a friend's facebook wall about how you got this "killer deal on pot" or how you "got this totally awesome handjob from a local hooker" and police find out and charge you, it's your own damn fault for being an idiot.
Furthermore, if you buddy wants to play confidential informant and sell you out to the government, that's a problem between you and your buddy, not between you and the government.
If you don't want police (or anyone) prying into your business, don't make information about said business publicly accessible.
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
I wonder what the quality of the "leads" they get will be. I would expect it's more likely to be from disaffected children using facebook who are annoyed with something their friends have done and report them out of spite.
Personally I think this looks like one of those great ideas that was dreamed up to make them look trendy and "in touch". I'd give it 6 months before it's quietly dropped under an initial tide of spam, false leads and time wasters, followed by complete and utter apathy.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
The police already tried this on MySpace. All they found were glittery ponies.
TELEPHONE TRANSCRIPT:
Victim: Burglars have been at my house and it's been ransacked and my five year old daughter has been kidnapped!
Police officer: Hold on, how do you spell your name again *tap tap tap tap* .. oh wait, Google's working now.. whew!...
Victim: There's blood on the kitchen floor and..
Police officer: Yeah yeah.. whatever.. oh, I found pictures of your daughter, she was on facebook.
Victim: Facebook?
Police officer: But I'm afraid we have no leads. She hasn't used her facebook account for a while.. oh well, sorry about that.
Victim: So when am I going to see a police officer?
Police officer: Well you can chat to me online.. do you have Yahoo?
*CLICK*
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
...then it's public information. Electronic publishing by its very nature precludes any rights, real or imagined, to privacy. But, like any other information on the internet, it's to be taken with a pinch of salt. I for one wouldn't trust for evidence.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Since it seems unlikely people on Facebook are going to confess to be being a major drug trafficker, or show video clips of their last home invasion rape and robbery, I can't really see the value to society of wasting law enforcement resources clogging up the criminal justice system with the parade of Facebook petty crimes.
I don't know about the UK, but here in the states our criminal justice system is full. We have enough people in jail, more than enough people getting tagged with arrest records over fairly minor infractions. We need law enforcement to focus on the big problems and not be looking for reasons to dump some otherwise law-abiding person into the criminal justice meat grinder because they copped to some petty crime in Facebook.
And we need to de-criminalize a wide swath of drug possession crimes. We're spending billions keeping people in jail for a few oz's of pot. It's really quite insane.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage