SurveillanceFacebook could mean the end of undercover ops

With the increasing ubiquity of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, undercover police assignments are becoming progressively difficult to pull off.

Law enforcement officials have begun using Facebook to identify criminals and gather information about their habits, but the technology has the potential to be a double edged sword. An undercover officer could successfully infiltrate a gang only to have their cover blown after their photo is recognized and their Facebook profile carefully scrutinized. Photos of the officer with other members of the police department or in uniform are obvious signals that the undercover agent is not who appear to be.

To better understand the impacts of social media on undercover operations, Australian Federal Police have launched a research study. In a survey conducted last winter, the Australian Federal Police found that an overwhelming number of its police officers regularly used social media. 90 percent of female respondents said they used social media, while 81 percent responded affirmatively with Facebook and Twitter as the main two sites.

Furthermore all respondents aged twenty-six or younger had uploaded photos of themselves onto the Internet. Meanwhile 85 percent of respondents said that someone else had uploaded photos of them.

Perhaps most challenging for undercover officers is the statistic that 42 percent of respondents said that they could identify a person using their social media relationships.

“The 16-year-olds of today who might become officers in the future have already been exposed,” said Mick Keelty, a former Australian Federal Police commissioner. “If you have someone in the service who is trying to remain anonymous for whatever reason, it is still possible through other relationships to find them.”

Police departments will now likely have to carefully scrutinize or delete social media profiles before an officer can be deployed.