Fighting Crime with Facebook

Fighting crime with Facebook

[Main image: Police Main Photo]

Yet another story surfaced last week that a man served jail time after posting incriminating photos on Facebook. It seems the social network is increasingly becoming a way for authorities all over the globe to fight crime…

Last week Mashable reported that a man had put photos on Facebook of his big wedding day, which seems like fairly normal and acceptable behaviour until you learn that he was still married to someone else at the time. Unsurprisingly his estranged wife was still keeping tabs on him and alerted the police as soon as she saw the damning photo evidence.

It makes you wonder how someone could be so stupid to do something pretty illegal and then document it for all the world to see, but this certainly isn’t the first time Facebook has played a part in convicting people. For instance, earlier this year a woman from the UK posted a few too many photos of herself abroad, which led to officials finding her guilty of tax evasion and the media were all over the story of a couple who were found guilty of benefit fraud after they were seen posing on holiday with a giant Mickey Mouse.

I’m not saying fraud, tax evasion and bigamy aren’t serious issues, but what I find even more interesting is the way Facebook is being used in more large-scale murder investigations.

During the investigation into the death of Joanna Yates at the beginning of this year, detectives put an advertisement on Facebook asking for information with a direct number to their incident room. It seems only right that this communication channel would be exploited considering such a large number of people are increasingly paying attention to their online networks more than traditional media.

However, those involved in her case didn’t stop at Facebook advertising. According to the media, the detectives quickly turned to Joanna’s Facebook network to try and give them more clues about her life and the people she knew. Although I don’t know the ins and outs of whether this was a successful endeavour or not, with the scary statistic that most murders are committed by people the victim knows, it seems to make a great deal of sense to turn to Facebook friends in an attempt to unearth more information.

I imagine in the future Facebook will increasingly become an invaluable tool to paint a picture of a victim’s circle of friends, identify potential criminals and expose benefit cheats. Although I understand that some people may see this as an invasion of their privacy, if it’s going to help solve a murder case or stop people taking advantage of the system then why not?

Image via FreefotoUK’s Flickr.