BY KEVIN SAWYER – All over the country, police departments are having officers create fake profiles on Facebook for the express purpose of tracking people and monitoring what goes on in certain communities. This new law enforcement “liberty” has the full blessing of the United States Justice Department. It has published a social media user’s guide for law enforcement and it explicitly details how officers can build Facebook profiles and masquerade as actual people.
The police in local communities say that they are setting themselves up as fake people and members of a community to monitor people they suspect of criminal activity. The police forces are also using new custom built software that does predictive analysis. It allows them to monitor Facebook posts and respond accordingly. If they notice that someone has posted something that states they are upset about something, the local police will immediately declare that particular neighborhood a “high risk” area and will step up patrols.
Around 1,221 police departments and law enforcement agencies are currently using social media as a way to monitor criminal activity and to possibly lure someone out to be arrested on a warrant for a previous crime. Creating fake profiles is considered ethical by law enforcement officials pretty much across the board.
The New York Times has reported that NYPD officers are setting themselves up as attractive females to lure in gang members to try and discover what the various gangs of New York might be up to. No one has stated where these profile photos of pretty women come from or if the women have given their consent for their use. Criminal lawyers around the country are waiting to see how this plays out. They have always felt that police posing as hookers or drug dealers was entrapment but it has rarely, if ever, stood up in court. The law says that it’s a crime to lie to a law enforcement officer but they can lie to you all day long with impunity. Apparently, the law doesn’t see law enforcement officers as citizens subject to the same laws as everyone else.
So, how to spot a fake profile?
- The profile is pretty recent. Usually no more than two years old. This is understandable for a teen but not for an adult. There is usually only one photo on the page and almost no biographical information at all. Even if they say they have been a member for years, there will be no posting trail.
- Real accounts have photos posted over an extended period of time. Fake accounts may have a dozen or more posted on one day. The police profiles will have almost no friends and you will be hard pressed to find a friend that you have in common with that fake profile.
- There will be almost no interaction on the page. You won’t see many, if any, comments or likes of sharings. The photos look professionally done. Some hot model is interested in you all of a sudden. Use reverse image search. It will be able to tell you if the “person” in the profile is actually a real person or not. If you have any second thoughts at all about a profile, go with those thoughts.
PHOTO CREDIT: Pixabay