6 Ways Law Enforcement Uses Social Media to Fight Crime

From felons on Facebook to tips through Twitter, social media is being used more and more by law enforcement agencies, and not just to fight Internet (Internet)-related crimes. We’re talking about solving crimes that are happening on the street and in your community. According to Lauri Stevens, founder of LAwS Communications and organizer of the SMILE (Social Media In Law Enforcement) Conference being held in Washington D.C. this April, adoption of social media is still in the “very, very, early stages,” but she sees it making an upward turn. “I expect 2010 will be a monumental year,” she said.

But many police departments that have embraced social media are still trying to figure it out. “Most agencies … are not significantly proactive with keeping up with content and updates,” said Terry Halsch from CitizenObserver.com, developers of the tip411 system for police agencies. “There are some limitations because of uncertainty of how secure information is, how can it be efficiently maintained, and the risks and liabilities of entering the world of social media.”

Below are six different ways law enforcement is utilizing social media and real-time search to enhance tactics, disseminate public information, and ultimately prevent criminal activity:

1. Police Blotter Blogs
2. The Digital "Wanted Poster"
3. Anonymous E-Tipsters
4. Social Media Stakeout
5. Thwarting Thus in the Social Space
6. Tracking and informing with Twitter

See also:

• "Gangs in New York talk Twitter: Use tweets to trash-talk rivals, plan fights", NY Daily News, 11/29/09.
  
• "Police Use Web To Track Down Gang Members", 219 Magazine, 8/13/09.

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Pleaserobme.Com Highlights Dangers of TMI on Social Networks

Three Dutch website developers have created a website that highlights exactly how dangerous too much information can be when it comes to social networking. Pleasrobme.com was launched on Wednesday and has already got the internet news and blogging community talking about the implications of such an experiment. The site aggregates the Twitter feeds of people who play Foursquare, a location-sharing application that allows users to "check in" from their various geographic whereabouts as part of a game where they earn badges for reaching certain milestones. The problem is, according to pleasrobme, in playing the game, many users are also publicly broadcasting that their home is likely unattended and a good "opportunity" (as the site terms it) for thieves.

The creators of Pleaserobme state on the home page of the site that the point is not so much to assist robbers at breaking into homes, but to bring into focus the potential dangers of oversharing information through social networks. "Hey, do you have a Twitter account?" the site asks. "Have you ever noticed those messages in which people tell you where they are? Pretty annoying, eh. Well, they're actually also potentially pretty dangerous. We're about to tell you why." The hazards of giving up too much information can also pose business risks. As illustrated in The Final 5 Tweets of Harold Wigginbottom, Tech Savvy CEO, oversharing can also make you a desirable target for kidnapping, especially if you are an executive or other kind of VIP. At the 2009 CSO Executive Seminar on Data Loss Prevention in Chicago, Motorola CSO Bill Boni expressed his reservations about using Twitter, calling it a great way to get one's self kidnapped.

• "Web Posts May make You Vulnerable to Crime, NPR, 2/25/10.

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Disasters 2.0 Conference Addresses Social Media Use During Emergencies

The use of social media to inform communities about emergencies has taken local public information officers by storm. Recent events have outlined social media’s popularity as survivors of Haiti’s earthquake turned to Twitter and other networks to update their statuses and verify the well-being of loved ones. Its popularity with citizens worldwide has led to a bevy of questions regarding use and best practices.

About 130 public and private information officers from the emergency management, first response and business continuity communities gathered on Jan. 21 at the Midwest Disasters 2.0: Social Media and Emergency Response training session. The session’s goal was to assemble Kansas City, Kan.-area emergency communicators to learn how social media systems work and how they can be used during a disaster.

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CIA Buys Stake in Firm That Monitors Blogs, Tweets

In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA and the wider intelligence community, is putting cash into Visible Technologies, a software firm that specializes in monitoring social media. It’s part of a larger movement within the spy services to get better at using "open source intelligence” — information that’s publicly available, but often hidden in the flood of TV shows, newspaper articles, blog posts, online videos and radio reports generated every day.

Visible crawls over half a million web 2.0 sites a day, scraping more than a million posts and conversations taking place on blogs, online forums, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Amazon. (It doesn’t touch closed social networks, like Facebook, at the moment.) Customers get customized, real-time feeds of what’s being said on these sites, based on a series of keywords.

Then Visible “scores” each post, labeling it as positive or negative, mixed or neutral. It examines how influential a conversation or an author is. Finally, Visible gives users a chance to tag posts, forward them to colleagues and allow them to response through a web interface.

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