// posted by Greg // 04.13.2008 at 11:37 am //

We’re all watching us!

I know… I’m repetitive, I ramble but it’s true…social media open up the way for greater surveillance. My previous posts have gone on about how the web allows authorities to (potentially) perfectly monitor our social activities, at least as we or our friends report them on facebook/twitter. But today the NY Times brings us a story social surveillance using facebook and beyond.ca in order to enhance some good ol’ police work.As the Times reports it, a couple of men walked into a car dealership, got the keys for a rare car to take a test drive and never came back. Shaun Ironside, the dealership owner, then reported the theft to the police and then went on to make a posting on beyond.ca. After the thief got his picture taken by one tech savvy Samaritan, someone else reported a sighting.

Two hours after the photo taken by Mr. Lynch was posted, Allan Thomson, known on the forum as Numi, reported a Skyline [the stolen car] sighting the previous night and gave directions to the area. The forum exploded with vigilante fervor; members living close by proposed a search.

Four hours later, Mr. Thomson posted again, this time to say that he had sent out a personal message pinpointing the car’s position.

10:23 PM, March 27 FOUND!!! PMED with exact location. Guy drives it like he owns it. Idiot parks outside his house backed in so you cant see his plate.

Exactly 15 minutes later, a forum member added a link to a Google map with directions to the house. Other members scrambled to narrow their Facebook searches for the suspect to the closest high school. At about 11 p.m., a link to the Facebook profile appeared online. The photos seemed to show the same person in the picture taken by Mr. Lynch.

This kind of thing scares me. It’s now not enough that I need to worry that a friend of mine has tagged me at some party when I was drunk, 18, naked, and doing something stupid, that my employer might dig up and fire me for. Now folks are posting directions to peoples homes, perhaps with google street view we can get a picture of the homes interior. This all for everyone (or scarier anyone) to see. This dumb punk was photographed in a rare car in a city of about one million and was pinpointed within 2 days.

In this case the police work was legitimate, but is this kind of web use legitimate or appropriate? What if someone used that google map to violently reclaim or re-steal that car? Do we want vigilante geeks? I’m happy for Mr. Ironside, and this case is clearly an example of how net surveillance can do good things, but that doesn’t mean that we should consider this kind of thing legitimate police work. I fear this is a short-term lullaby but a long term horror show.

// Tagged democracy, Featured