Social Networking
The days when due diligence, background checks, examining public records or even ‘Googling’ amounted to a full review of a resume have gone. On a daily basis, MPOL now utilises the information which our in-house agent, Julia Robson, is able to source on social networks to learn about the subjects of our investigations.
Today a witness, skip, potential business partner, supplier or employee is more than likely to have a social networking site such as Facebook or MySpace. Social networking activity can be quite revealing – a kind of informal resume and kitchen table chat, not tailored to a specific event or situation, and very likely full of unguarded admissions about everyday activities and interests.
People interact with a range of people on social network sites, including their friends, work colleagues and, often, internet-only acquaintances. The self-generated content, along with comments from other participants, provide insight into a person’s values, activities, self image and significant events. Over time, there will be information added regarding past employers and education as well as all other people in their network and most importantly leisure activities.
We use online sites to search for information including hobbies, interests, significant life events and marital status. Information is available not only from a subject’s site but also from any connected ‘friends’ who will often have further details. If the information is on the site, there is usually a way to access it.
Two recent examples of information obtained from searches of social networking sites are:
- While conducting due diligence investigations for a client with a pending employment offer, we located photographs and information on MySpace that included previous injuries, drinking habits as well as some criminal conflicts.
- An insurance claimant was suspected of having undeclared income from a place of part-time employment. While we had a potential email address there was no physical link to the subject until an email search on Facebook pointed to a profile which had a complete privacy block. However, the email address also turned up in a section on a ‘friend’ site – that site was open and provided a clear link to the subject, with a photograph and a clear link to the place of part-time employment.
Overall people are using their social sites more and more. Depending on your perspective, it’s either fortunate or unfortunate that if it’s online, there is a good chance that we will find what we need to investigate and assist our clients.
For further details on the information which MPOL can obtain via our expertise in social networking sites, please contact Julia Robson or call on 03 9572 1433.