Fired after photos gave him away

Fired after photos gave him away

By Ben Nadarajan

HIS favourite band was in town, and he called in sick just to make sure work did not hold him back from attending the concert that night.

Shawn (not his real name) almost got away with it, but his friends posted photographs of him at the concert on social networking site Facebook the next day.

His colleagues, who were also on his Facebook account, saw the photos, and word of it made its way to his supervisor.

Shawn, who is in his late 20s, was fired. ‘I forgot that my friends would post the pictures online, and that I had people at work on my Facebook too,’ he told The Straits Times.

Another professional, who is in his mid-30s, got into trouble after a Facebook status update on how he had had a great dinner at a steak restaurant.

The problem was that he was supposed to have been resting at home after he called in sick with diarrhoea.

He was ticked off by his boss, but not sacked. He has since made a conscious effort to check that anything he puts on Facebook is safe.

‘Now, I update only after thinking through for a few minutes. It is not just for work stuff. Sometimes, I tell my friends I don’t feel well enough to meet them, but then they realise I was out partying,’ he said.

A recent survey on ethics at the workplace by Deloitte found that more than half of 2,008 Americans polled said their social networking pages were none of their bosses’ concern.

More than a third never or rarely considered what their bosses, colleagues or clients would think before posting something online. About two-thirds said they would not change their online habits even if they knew their bosses were watching.

About 7 per cent said they knew of a colleague who had been sacked in the past six months for online activity.

While bosses and human resource experts said such cases are rare here, they anticipate it would be only a matter of time before more cases come up because of the increasing popularity of such websites.

Last month, an insurance company stopped monthly payouts to a woman in Canada after it saw Facebook photos of her having fun overseas and at a male strip show on her birthday.

She had been receiving monthly sick-leave benefits from Canada’s Manulife Financial Insurance for a year as she had been on leave from IBM’s Quebec office after being diagnosed with major depression.

Sociology lecturer Paulin Straughan said people like to update their Facebook status and post photos as they want to see who reads their posts or views their pictures.

‘However, the naive perception is that they will be normal people, like your friends, and not people who will use them against you,’ she said.

Associate Professor Viktor Mayer-Schonberger of the Information and Innovation Policy Research Centre at the National University of Singapore said: ‘Users forget that what is said on Facebook is not something that just comes and goes, but a digital message that is kept forever.’

Source : Straits Times - 21 December 2009

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The truth is out there - on Facebook

The truth is out there - on Facebook

Social networking site a useful tool in getting information for legal battles

By Kimberly Spykerman and Lester Kok

LOOKING for a way out of her broken marriage, one woman turned to popular social networking site Facebook for evidence of her husband’s infidelity.

In the end, pictures and status updates posted by her husband’s pregnant girlfriend were proof enough for the court that the woman, who is in her late 20s, should not have to wait the standard three years for the divorce to be finalised.

Her lawyer Amolat Singh said: ‘She was a frequent Facebook user and was resourceful after stumbling on the photos.’

He is among a growing number of lawyers and private investigators here who say that with more people living their lives out loud online, Facebook has become a useful tool in legal battles.

The use of the social networking site has proven especially prevalent in evidence gathering for cases concerning extra-marital affairs or divorce.

Checking against online sources can be a good way of verifying a person’s story, said lawyer Chia Boon Teck. Though he did not reveal exact figures, Mr Chia said he has used Facebook for background checks and fact-finding in more than half the divorce cases he handled this year.

‘Divorce cases tend to involve a lot of personal life… it is like a diary. People will talk about their ‘exploits’ or things that make them happy,’ he said.

The online findings do not always end up being submitted as evidence in court, Mr Chia said. Often, it is used in the negotiation stages when one party denies an accusation of infidelity.

‘Often, the person being accused will instinctively react defensively and say, ‘I don’t know this woman’, but pictures and posts on Facebook show otherwise.’

A private investigator who wanted to be known only as Sam said Facebook has become an avenue to gather information.

‘It might be friends who post the photos of the couple attending functions together. People may take their photos not knowing the couple’s relationship,’ he said. ‘Nowadays, a lot of people, when they go partying, like to take photos of themselves and post them on the Net.’

And it is not just unfaithful spouses who have to worry about their shenanigans being uncovered.

Social networking sites have also become a gold mine of information for the police, and have even helped crack cases.

Earlier this year, Maxi Sopo - a 26-year-old on the run from charges of bank fraud in Seattle - was finally nabbed after a status update on his Facebook alerted police to his whereabouts.

He posted pictures of himself at glitzy nightclubs in Cancun, Mexico, and told his online friends what a good time he was having there. He failed to realise that a former Justice Department official was among his friends. It did not take the authorities long to track him down.

In September, a youth broke into a Pennsylvania home. Before he left with his loot, he used his victim’s computer to log onto Facebook but forgot to log off. He was identified using his online trail.

The use of Facebook also works the other way - as an alibi. Just last month, a teenager in Brooklyn was acquitted as a suspect in a robbery after it was discovered he had updated his Facebook status at the time of the crime and could not have been at the scene.

He used Facebook to prove he was 12km away at that time, and this was verified by his friends, who saw him there.

Both here and in many other countries such as Britain and Australia, social networking sites such as Twitter, MySpace and even YouTube are gaining ground as a tool for police to get tip-offs.

In Britain, plans are now being firmed up for a MyPolice website, which will become a central point for the public to give feedback to the local police.

The Singapore Police Force has its own Facebook page, launched in April, which it uses to appeal for information on crime suspects such as loanshark runners. The page has already garnered more than 10,000 ‘fans’, 700 of whom are from countries as far as Britain and Canada.

‘In this globalised world, there is a chance the suspects may even be recognised by our overseas fans…Police leverage on multiple channels of information in solving cases, and every piece of information is important,’ said its spokesman.

Veteran investigator Jeffery Ang, who retired from the police after 27 years and has been conducting investigation courses for the public and private sectors for the past seven years, said Facebook is a good source for data mining.

But one problem is that information gathered is not verified independently.

‘These are not facts, just hearsay,’ the former Criminal Investigation Department trainer said. ‘For digital photos, you can’t prove they are original as photos can be manipulated and put on the Web. You can’t authenticate them unless you get the original files from the photographer.’

He added: ‘This way of getting information is more trendy…but the information should be verified by conducting a proper investigation.’

Only when it is backed up will it be admissible as court evidence, he said.

Professor Jonathan Ezor of Touro Law School in Central Islip, New York, told Newsday.com that it was not inconceivable for someone to falsify their whereabouts on such sites.

‘There really is no way of proving who was at the computer, which is the problem with any Internet-based investigation,’ he said. ‘Today, one can update Facebook status or tweet Twitter from any device at any location.’

Senior Counsel Alvin Yeo, who chairs the Government Parliamentary Committee for Law and Home Affairs, said the use of the Internet for investigative work is increasingly common and may soon become a norm.

However, the information gathered generally cannot be used in court on its own. ‘The source of information has to be presented. The author will be called to give evidence as well. This will give a chance for the author to explain further and also to be cross-examined,’ he said.

Mr Ang also said people should be aware that there are no privacy laws here, and all information found on the Web can be used for various purposes such as character screening and background checks.

Associate Professor Paulin Straughan from the sociology department at the National University of Singapore agreed: ‘It is a misconception that the Internet is a private domain because you are at your own computer, in your own home.’

She added that most people treat blogs and Facebook like they treat a physical diary, expecting it to be privy only to them. ‘We have a very low appreciation of technology…we know how to use it, but we don’t know how it can be used against us,’ she said.

There is also the question of ethics. Singapore Management University ethics lecturer Eduard Jordaan said the debate has not been settled on whether the use of Facebook as evidence is an invasion of privacy.

‘This is a grey area,’ he said. ‘Facebook helps to establish the truth. But there might be truths that we don’t want everyone to know about.’

Source : Straits Times - 21 December 2009

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