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In a ruling that is likely to have knock on effects for the privacy of New Yorkers, a state appeals court has ruled that when it comes to users suspected of Social Security fraud, Facebook must bend to the will of warrants applied to the site's users and hand over their data. In this specific instance, some 381 individuals are under investigation, so their photos, private messages and other information can now be collected by the authorities.
Facebook argued in the court that if it was forced to hand over data, it would set a precedent that prosecutors should have access to anyone's private information. It was backed up by both Microsoft and Google, which also store a lot of personal information on their users and have been admonished in recent years for handing it over when pressured by the government and its authoritative organisations.
Hence perhaps their attempts to at least appear aggressive in the defence of user data. However if any social networks are seen as unable to protect user secrets – even from the government – it may make people much less willing to share information over the networks in the future.
Of course since this was an appeal, the data was long ago handed over to police, eventually leading to the conviction of many individuals. Facebook has since said it may look to take this case to a higher court, since it believed even with warrants, the investigations violated the fourth amendment rights of its users.
However, prosecutors said that Facebook pages could prove invaluable in finding those that falsify disability claims and other social security fraud. In many cases, those claiming disability allowance have been found riding jet skis or taking part in other physical activity while they claim to be unable to work.
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KitGuru Says: At least the police in this instance did have a warrant for the data. You have to wonder why it didn't just ask the NSA, as it had all the data on hand anyway.
Image source: Utsha Guha/Flickr [Thanks Reuters]
people actually expect their facebook posts to be protected?
Well, I would expect that the government has access to anything I do online. But in a mass data kind of way, where it’s so buried in other people’s private information that it matters a bit less. However, I would also expect governments to abide by privacy laws, and so targeted mining of personal information like this should not happen. The problem is that the laws that handle these things are ancient and not designed with the internet in mind. So to a judge this is probably similar to getting wire taps or something, while to me this is like putting up camera’s in somebody’s home.
obviously you’re not as cynical as me then.
i’m of the firm belief that any government with the power/technology/ability to do something like this will do it, and there’s very little we can do to stop them.
Reason 8,153,481 to stay off Facebook.
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You misunderstand. I’m not saying that I’m not convinced that they’ll do it, the opposite in fact. I explicitly say that I expect that governments will mine everything I do online.
But I would also expect any democratically elected government to abide by the laws they create. They don’t, they never have and probably never will. Maybe expect isn’t the right word in that sense; they should at least follow their own laws if nothing else. If they can’t even do that, then why do we keep electing them?