Social Media has become a prevalent part of our lives. Tweeting, Instagramming, Snapchatting, YouTubing and updating your status on Facebook are just some of our daily routines and unfortunately leads to incredible amounts of over-sharing of personal information which more often than not becomes evidence in criminal investigations. As a criminal defense attorney in Ohio, I can tell you that law enforcement is using social media and finding incriminating evidence posted, every single day, to gather information on suspects to build cases.
People need to know that they should not expect privacy, at all, of the information that they willingly post on social media sites. Even when a person has the privacy settings on, anyone with access to the account – friends, friends of friends, etc – can screenshot and hand over the goods. Police have also been known to make fake accounts and send friend requests and unfortunately, grab access to all the information needed. If the government becomes involved, they are able to request your private information from the social network by way of subpoenas and warrants.
Additionally, advanced analytics can sift important and relevant information that will incriminate a person. A search can easily be done to pull relevant content, determine who is saying what to whom, where it’s happening because of GPS locations, check-ins, login timetables, and how it’s all going down. It can process and understand meaning in language and text language. It can be used to link people to places and help law enforcement focus on key individuals.
What a person writes online has the ability to affect them forever. The item remains on the world wide web and can come back to haunt a person at any time. My best advice to everyone:
- When you are posting to any social media site, remember that you may someday be a suspect and your updates will be used to establish probable cause to search a location or to locate someone.
- Consider the pictures and videos you are uploading. Do they show an underage person drinking? If a person is on their way to court for a DUI, that picture could be used against them, especially now with minute details like time and place on every post.
- Make sure the privacy settings are on the most restrictive. Even though it won’t be completely private, it will be harder to obtain by law enforcement.
- Never, ever accept a friend request from someone you don’t know. As a criminal defense attorney, I have seen this all the time. Be particular about who you let into your social media world.
The Bottom Line: Investigators are mining social networking sites for evidence, because even without having to seek a warrant from a court, there are mountains of evidence publicly available. A recent survey of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, show that social media is used heavily to assist in investigations and personnel are formally being trained to learn how to search and collect evidence. Social media evidence is the new frontier of criminal proceedings. However, it raises issues of admissibility and a defendant’s constitutional rights, so the best advice to everyone is to contact a criminal defense attorney experienced in these situations. Put my number in your phone, let me help you. 513-260-2099
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