Report: Facebook monitors chats for criminal activity

Facebook and other social networking services are monitoring users’ chats for potential criminal activity and accordingly notifying authorities, a tech site reported this week. Mashable said the new details about Facebook’s monitoring system stemmed from an interview by Reuters with Facebook’s chief security officer Joe Sullivan. “We’ve never wanted to set up an environment where we have employees looking at private communications, so it’s really important that we use technology that has a very low false-positive rate,” Mashable quoted Facebook as saying, adding this was the same reply Facebook gave to Reuters. The screening starts when their software detect words or phrases that suggest something suspicious – such as exchange of personal data or vulgar language, according to the report. Other factors the screening software will look for include a wide age gap and phrases found in previously obtained chat records from criminals, including sexual predators, the report said. “If the scanning software flags a suspicious chat exchange, it notifies Facebook security employees, who can then determine if police should be notified,” it said. On the other hand, Mashable said it was not immediately clear if the scanned chats are deleted or stored permanently. Mashable also said Facebook points out it works with law enforcement “where appropriate and to the extent required by law to ensure the safety of the people who use Facebook.” It noted that last April, it complied with a police subpoena from the Boston Police Department by sending printouts of wall posts, photos and login/IP data of a murder suspect. — LBG, GMA News