UK Police To Get Facebook Lessons 63
jhernik writes "The police are to receive training on how to use Facebook and Twitter to catch people committing serious crimes. The National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) will overhaul its training modules to include sessions on the social networking sites for detectives. 'This programme is a vital part of the career pathway for detectives and the new training covers sensitive areas of policing where limited guidance existed previously,' said deputy chief constable Nick Gargan, acting head of the NPIA, in a statement to the Press Association. 'These improvements are exactly what detectives need to tackle the challenges and complexities of modern policing effectively,' he added. 'The changes underline the importance to having a national agency to provide guidance and train detectives to a single high standard so they can work on investigations in any part of the country and give their colleagues and the public the best quality service in fighting crime.'"
Right... (Score:3, Insightful)
"serious crimes" like uploading a picture of your friend smoking weed, or your "5 days shy of 18" girlfriend in her underwear.
Re:Right... (Score:3, Insightful)
The girlfriend might have a thing or two to say.
Re:Discretion (Score:4, Insightful)
Police catch people, because people are dumb. It's not going to change.
A picture doesn't prove anything... (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless it's clearly child porn -
But it's total bullshit if any cops anywhere think they can arrest people for looking drunk, or being seen in a photo with a bottle of booze even if they're underage - or a photo of someone smoking something out of a bong or pipe - there is no way they could prove what the substance was, and while I am not sure about the UK, in the US our legal system hasn't eroded to that point yet, I am sure it probably will as we continue our descent into fascism and away from the rule of law.
it's bad enough that people think that the system works how it oes on TV and it's a hell of a rude awakening when you find out just how ridiculously fucked up it really is as it stands now.
Re:Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
The age of consent is 16 in many places in the US too. It's still illegal to take explicit pictures of anyone under 18. Fuck her all you want, but take a picture and you're going to jail.
Re:Its a good thing (Score:2, Insightful)
That this method can't be foiled by simply changing the privacy settings or... say... not posting this sort of evidence in there.
They should still catch people who take those precautions, it will just require more time and resources.
But part of the job of police is to catch perps as quickly as possible, and that includes investigating the fruitful types of avenues that are easiest to investigate first. Most criminals are stupid and if joined to a social network will reveal some HINT authorities could use, such as their location at X, so searching FBs raises the bar on the "perfect crime", whatever that is.
Facebook/social network investigation should be among the easiest, and can easily be automated, especially if the social network provider has a policy of assisting authorities, and especially if they can combine this with info from cell companies -- such as the location of various FB/Twitter users when they posted their tweets.
Posting something completely innocuous could still flag the perp, if it revealed their location close to the crime scene, for example, at an unusual time. Even if their update didn't discuss their location.... the social network provider knows when the update was posted, and their cell phone company will know where their device was located, when the post was made.
"private settings" do no good, with the legal burden needed for police to require cooperation as low as it is. The burden of proof is not probable cause, it's much easier to require a third party to cooperate, since no warrant is needed. One of the differences is broad 'fishing expeditions' are legal and allowed, because the information posted "in private" is in the hands of a third party.
Re:A picture doesn't prove anything... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's more to being a detective than finding evidence that would be admissible in court. Social networking is likely a good place to find useful leads, or might be solid enough to obtain a search warrant.
Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny but it seems that a good portion of those stupid people are either writing laws or enforcing them.
Re:Are They Really That Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe its more like How to use FB without destroying your case or How to use the special police interfaces into FB.
Re:A picture doesn't prove anything... (Score:2, Insightful)
But it's total bullshit if any cops anywhere think they can arrest people for looking drunk, or being seen in a photo with a bottle of booze even if they're underage - or a photo of someone smoking something out of a bong or pipe - there is no way they could prove what the substance was, and while I am not sure about the UK, in the US our legal system hasn't eroded to that point yet, I am sure it probably will as we continue our descent into fascism and away from the rule of law.
Wow. All this is a story about how cops are going to be taught about what Facebook is and how it works (and in another country, no less!) - and that's enough to make you wax paranoid about "our descent into fascism"? Dude, you really need to take a chill pill, and perhaps see a doctor.