By Eddie Wrenn
On March 9 of this year, a piece of Facebook software spotted something suspicious.
A man in his early thirties was chatting about sex with a 13-year-old South Florida girl and planned to meet her after middle-school classes the next day.
Facebook's extensive but little-discussed technology for scanning postings and chats for criminal activity automatically flagged the conversation for employees, who read it and quickly called police.
Officers took control of the teenager's computer and arrested the man the next day, said Special Agent Supervisor Jeffrey Duncan of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The alleged predator has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges of soliciting a minor.
Duncan, one of a half-dozen law enforcement officials interviewed who praised Facebook for triggering inquiries, said: 'The manner and speed with which they contacted us gave us the ability to respond as soon as possible.'
But the measures - while proving of utmost importance in a situation like this - does raise big privacy concerns in the debate about how much of our data we should entrust in these big companies.
Facebook is among the many companies that are embracing a combination of new technologies and human monitoring to thwart sex predators. Such efforts generally start with automated screening for inappropriate language and exchanges of personal information, and extend to using the records of convicted pedophiles' online chats to teach the software what to seek out.
Facebook's software likewise depends on relationship analysis and archives of real chats that preceded sex assaults, Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan told Reuters in the company's most expansive comments on the subject to date.
Like most of its peers, Facebook generally avoids discussing its safety practices to discourage scare stories, because it doesn't catch many wrongdoers, and to sidestep privacy concerns. Users could be unnerved about the extent to which their conversations are reviewed, at least by computer programs.
In part because of its massive size, Facebook relies more than some rivals on such technology.
'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,' he said. In addition, Facebook doesn't probe deeply into what it thinks are pre-existing relationships.
'I feel for every one we arrest, ten others get through the system,' Florida's Duncan said of tips from Facebook and other companies.
Another pillar in Facebook's strategy is to limit how those under 18 can interact on the site and to make it harder for adults to find them. Minors don't show up in public searches, only friends of friends can send them Facebook messages, and only friends can chat with them.
The gaping hole in the defense of Facebook and many other sites popular with teens is that minors can easily make up a birth date and pretend to be adults - and adults can pretend to be minors.
Technology is available for verifying the ages of Web and app users. One of the providers is Aristotle International Inc, which offers a variety of methods, including having a parent vouch for a child and make a token payment with a credit card to establish the parent's identity.
Yet even though defensive techniques are now available and effective they can be expensive. They can also alienate some of a site's target audience - especially teen users who expect more freedom of expression.
While many top sites catering to young children are quite vigilant, the same can't be said for the burgeoning array of online options for the 13- to 18-year-old set.
'There are companies out there that are doing a very good job, working within the confines of what they have available,' said Brooke Donahue, a supervisory special agent with an FBI team devoted to Internet predators and child pornography. 'There are companies out there that are more concerned about profitability.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2173081/Right-wrong-Facebook-monitors-chat-conversations-informs-police-suspicious--privacy-breach-does-catch-paedophiles.html#ixzz20qYbGrOc
On March 9 of this year, a piece of Facebook software spotted something suspicious.
A man in his early thirties was chatting about sex with a 13-year-old South Florida girl and planned to meet her after middle-school classes the next day.
Facebook's extensive but little-discussed technology for scanning postings and chats for criminal activity automatically flagged the conversation for employees, who read it and quickly called police.
Officers took control of the teenager's computer and arrested the man the next day, said Special Agent Supervisor Jeffrey Duncan of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The alleged predator has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges of soliciting a minor.
For better or for worse: Facebook monitors chat logs and certain phrases are flagged up for attention
But the measures - while proving of utmost importance in a situation like this - does raise big privacy concerns in the debate about how much of our data we should entrust in these big companies.
Facebook is among the many companies that are embracing a combination of new technologies and human monitoring to thwart sex predators. Such efforts generally start with automated screening for inappropriate language and exchanges of personal information, and extend to using the records of convicted pedophiles' online chats to teach the software what to seek out.
Facebook's software likewise depends on relationship analysis and archives of real chats that preceded sex assaults, Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan told Reuters in the company's most expansive comments on the subject to date.
Privacy line: Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, pictured in Sun Valley, Idaho, this week
In part because of its massive size, Facebook relies more than some rivals on such technology.
'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,' he said. In addition, Facebook doesn't probe deeply into what it thinks are pre-existing relationships.
A low rate of false positives, though, also means that many dangerous communications go undetected.
Some adults have used Facebook to target dozens of minors before assaulting one or more and then being identified by their victims or the victims' parents, court records show.'I feel for every one we arrest, ten others get through the system,' Florida's Duncan said of tips from Facebook and other companies.
Another pillar in Facebook's strategy is to limit how those under 18 can interact on the site and to make it harder for adults to find them. Minors don't show up in public searches, only friends of friends can send them Facebook messages, and only friends can chat with them.
The gaping hole in the defense of Facebook and many other sites popular with teens is that minors can easily make up a birth date and pretend to be adults - and adults can pretend to be minors.
'There are companies out there that are doing a very good job ... [and] ...There are companies out there that are more concerned about profitability.'
- Brooke Donahue, FBI special agent
Yet even though defensive techniques are now available and effective they can be expensive. They can also alienate some of a site's target audience - especially teen users who expect more freedom of expression.
While many top sites catering to young children are quite vigilant, the same can't be said for the burgeoning array of online options for the 13- to 18-year-old set.
'There are companies out there that are doing a very good job, working within the confines of what they have available,' said Brooke Donahue, a supervisory special agent with an FBI team devoted to Internet predators and child pornography. 'There are companies out there that are more concerned about profitability.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2173081/Right-wrong-Facebook-monitors-chat-conversations-informs-police-suspicious--privacy-breach-does-catch-paedophiles.html#ixzz20qYbGrOc
