Slashdot Mirror
Toronto Police Use Facebook Picture in Online Lineup
An anonymous reader writes "A 28-year-old woman was recently accused of assault and arrested based on a thumbnail photo from her profile pic on Facebook. Artist Lizz Aston was identified in a lineup after police used a picture from her Facebook profile. From the article: 'In an interview she said, "I told the officer I was at an art opening for a friend, then went home with my boyfriend because he injured his knee. We stayed in for the rest of the night and I did research on the computer for an art installation I was working on. The officer didn't care ... I don't think the police looked into it further." Aston said, the officer "read me my rights. I was searched, finger printed and processed."'"
You talked to the police officer.
Use Myspace! You could throw someone off a bridge and nobody would ever look there!
I am Jacks complete lack of Windows
That's all this story is, really. It's not a Facebook problem, it's a bad police work problem. People have been misidentified from photographs as suspects in a crime, and suffered as a result, since as long as there have been such things -- and police have been refusing to admit any wrongdoing, in this or any other aspect of their work, for at least as long.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
You didn't read the article. She was arrested SOLELY based on a person's identification of her Facebook picture, completely out of context. She was not present at the alleged altercation, and had a solid alibi. They proceeded anyways.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
You put your pics online
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
In a lineup, you get a bunch of people who match the general description given by the witness, including one who you suspect. You then ask the witness to identify the guilty party out of them. You can do it in person or with photos.
In this case, they apparently showed the victim a bunch of pictures of people who had "friended" the bar, got an ID based on that, and failed to investigate further -- just arrested, charged, and let her try to prove her innocence, which she was fortunately able to do.
Its not clear if the police used facebook. The victim of the assault *may* have used facebook on her own and then went to the police with the photo. From the article:
"When she called an officer told her "there was an altercation at the bar, two girls got in a fight and the girl who was assaulted has pointed you out as being her assaulter through a photo on Facebook.""
I think you're missing the point.
The headline's trying to beat-up the Facebook connection, to tie into the anti-Facebook zeitgeist that pervades Slashdot. The actual story is that police didn't actually investigate thoroughly, and ignored all other evidence. That would have been a problem even if they'd used, say, a photo from a school yearbook, or from a publicity shot from her art exhibition.
In short, the summary's trying to turn the story into a "OH NOES! Facebook is the end of privacy!" when really it's a "OH NOES! Police are sloppy and lazy" story.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Mistaken eyewitness identification is one of the leading causes of false arrests and convictions. The average civilian is absolutely terrible with memorizing and correctly identifying the actual guilty suspect.
Even worse is that most police lineups and photo arrays (or photo lineups) are presented as a "multiple choice" test. Where the victim or accuser feels like they must choose someone rather than admit that they don't recognize anyone or are unsure. They'll just pick the closest person that they think fits the person that they saw earlier. And earlier might be hours, days, or even weeks or longer. Academic studies have shown that if you give the average person a lineup of random innocent people that most people will finger one of them for the crime.
And of course we have police that coach someone going into a lineup. "Here we have suspects one, two, three *cough* FOUR, and five. Please identify which suspect you think robbed the convenience store". "Uh....it was person number four".
And lastly, one of my best friends is a cop,and he says as a joke that they put cops into lineups all of the time. Then they bet if the civilian will identify the cop as the shooter or rapist or whatever. I know one department even had a jackpot where if you went into a lineup and got chosen as the criminal you got a free golf club.
You're missing the point of the article. She claims she wasn't in the bar that night.
No, that's the point of the summary. The article makes things less clear. In the article a victim identifies her using a photo. The accused shows the cops some text messages to suggest she was somewhere else. Given these unequal pieces of evidence, informing a person in such a situation that they are a suspect, reading them their rights and fingerprinting them seems a pretty normal thing for police to do. People get arrested and processed when they are mere suspects. The fact that the photo came from facebook isn't really relevant.
"Police are sloppy and lazy" is not a story, or news of any kind. I respect police officers in general because I know they have a shitty job where they see the worst of everyone, all the time-- but I also know when invesitgating a crime they will always look for the easiest explanation that requires the least amount of paperwork, and preferably does not require them to get out of a squad car.
Oh, and... don't ever talk to cops. They sent this person an email and she voluntarily went down to the station to "help" with the investigation? Silly rabbit. The only way you'll get me down to the station is if I'm served a warrant, or bailing a buddy out of jail.
FTFA:
"She said she received an e-mail in January from a Toronto Police officer in 14 Division "asking me to contact them about an incident that occurred at The Piston (on Bloor St. W., Nov. 19, 2011)."
And then she did? WTF! That's the last thing anyone should do.
So...you received an Internet message from someone claiming to be a cop? Step #1: Ignore it. There's no way on god's green earth that anyone should respond to a frickin' electronic message from a cop. Clearly the cops didn't think it was important enough to send a car around to her place. If she ignored it, it probably would have went no where. The only possible first step is contact a lawyer. She believed she'd be cleared because that she is innocent? What?! Is she new? Since when has that ever happened? Cops are interested in closing the file...if your name is in it, or someone else's, it doesn't matter.
DO NOT TALK TO POLICE, especially on purpose. Talk to your lawyer, have your lawyer talk to police.
There is no need to talk to the arresting cop, there is nothing he can do. He's got a warrant with your name on it and he has to bring you in for booking. That's really all there is to it and there is nothing that you can do at that point that isn't going to cause you actually pain, and another charge. The cop has no choice. What is he going to do, go back to the detective that got the warrant and say you convinced him you didn't do anything? The judge signed the warrant, you beef is with him now.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Yes, the actual story is that the police didn't do their jobs, but that's certainly not anything new and it's certainly not the only story.
Another underlying story here is that given a big enough sample size, it's highly probable to find someone who's going to be a doppelgänger of the person you're looking for. This goes for a search on looks, partial fingerprints, or even partial dna.
Historically, this hasn't been much of a problem, but as technology advances -- getting larger and larger samples sizes of data is becoming easier and easier even for the average police man, so this kind of problem is only going to grow and grow as time goes on.
The courts have ruled several times that the police are under no obligation to protect you from anyone.
In a few months that young idealistic officer will be tasing the elderly/children and lying through his teeth while under oath in court.
There are no good police until there are no bad police. End of story.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
visual identification is pretty strong evidence.
Go read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyewitness_identification
Then come back and apologize for making shit up.
But since I know you wont here's a snippet. A quote from a Supreme Court Justice.
Justice Brennan also observed that "At least since United States v. Wade, 388 U. S. 218 (1967), the Court has recognized the inherently suspect qualities of eyewitness identification evidence, and described the evidence as "notoriously unreliable"
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.