Training Cops To Use Social Media Information

jfruh writes "Cynthia Navarro starts her sessions training police to mine social media in dramatic fashion: by quickly finding data about the officers themselves. She also provides information about who's where online — for instance, younger suspects will probably be focused on Twitter, while older folks are on Facebook or even MySpace. 'How much information can be gathered? Look no further than the 2011 Stanley Cup Riots in Vancouver, BC. By examining hours of video and social media posts made during the event, a taskforce was able to post pictures of over 100 suspected rioters online — over 30 of which were identified by police.' It's all part of a drive to teach even nontechnical police officers at small and midsized departments how to use social media to track suspects."

Comments

Status update

[Dyinobal]

Robbing the Exxon at 35 and north street. :)))))))))))))))) Totally gonna get a burrito too.

Young suspects on Twitter, older folks on Facebook

[CubicleZombie]

Damn, and I've been wondering why nobody's called my BBS in 20 years.

Re:Training Cops To Use Social Media Information..

[Seumas]

Exactly. Before training doughnut-munchers to troll twitter and facebook for information on criminal activities, how about we spend those time and resources educating them on constitutional basics so that they violate those of the people they protect less often? Cops aren't lawyers. Their job is to just sort of enforce laws with blunt-force and let someone else sort things out, later. But imagine if they were educated just a little bit about the constitution? (Cops know nearly nothing about the constitution or the law, hence why they so easily and frequently and STUPIDLY violate it on a daily basis). Give them anything more complicated than giving out parking tickets or responding to a break-in and they're like my dog trying to comprehend string-theory.