Facebook Photos Used To Discredit Injury Claims

[The Straight Story]

Facebook Photos Used To Discredit Injury Claims
Central Florida Attorney Advises Clients To Close Social Network Accounts

ORLANDO, Fla. -- The next time you post a photo or comment on your personal Facebook page, you may be providing ammunition for insurance spies.

Orlando injury attorney Christian Payer said it's about finding a photo "highlight" that can be used against a client collecting benefits.

"Facebook is becoming a weapon. It is a weapon. It has been for years," Payer said.

Payer told Local 6 investigative reporter Mike Holfeld that he reviews his clients' Facebook and other social network accounts to make sure there is no post or picture that can be used against them.

Payer admits that he usually tells them to close the accounts because companies have "entire teams that do nothing but troll through social media attempting to find things on people."

http://www.clickorlando.com/news/29604392/detail.html

[shraby]

1. How does one close a facebook account? I've looked all over

and can't find out how.

[AnOhioan]

3. Account settings, Security tab, Deactivate link

[shraby]

6. Gotterdun.

[FSogol]

2. It is the divorce lawyer's main research tool also. n/t

[woo me with science]

4. "Government Aims to Build a ‘Data Eye in the Sky’"

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/science/11predict.html

Government Aims to Build a ‘Data Eye in the Sky’
By JOHN MARKOFF NY Times
Published: October 10, 2011

....

The government is showing interest in the idea. This summer a little-known intelligence agency began seeking ideas from academic social scientists and corporations for ways to automatically scan the Internet in 21 Latin American countries for “big data,” according to a research proposal being circulated by the agency. The three-year experiment, to begin in April, is being financed by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, or Iarpa (pronounced eye-AR-puh), part of the office of the director of national intelligence.

The automated data collection system is to focus on patterns of communication, consumption and movement of populations. It will use publicly accessible data, including Web search queries, blog entries, Internet traffic flow, financial market indicators, traffic webcams and changes in Wikipedia entries.

It is intended to be an entirely automated system, a “data eye in the sky” without human intervention, according to the program proposal. The research would not be limited to political and economic events, but would also explore the ability to predict pandemics and other types of widespread contagion, something that has been pursued independently by civilian researchers and by companies like Google.

Some social scientists and advocates of privacy rights are deeply skeptical of the project, saying it evokes queasy memories of Total Information Awareness, a post-9/11 Pentagon program that proposed hunting for potential attackers by identifying patterns in vast collections of public and private data: telephone calling records, e-mail, travel data, visa and passport information, and credit card transactions....



More links of note:

Privacy, Freedom, and the All Seeing Eye: The Panopticon
http://newsjunkiepost.com/2011/05/02/privacy-freedom-and-the-all-seeing-eye-the-panopticon/


3 new expansions of Surveillance State cloak the powerful in secrecy and make our lives open books (note section on use of internet records)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1155333

[kestrel91316]

5. If I have my FB account set so that only my FRIENDS can view it,

how would an insurance company see what I post??? I would never FRIEND an insurer or employer.

[lynne]

7. The article even says how to set your account -

- so that only your friends can view photos. I would never have my photos set so that everyone could see them. It's not a Facebook problem, its the user not using the security features adequately.

If you're collecting disability or work comp due to a back or similar injury, you can bet that an insurance investigator is not far behind you watching to see if you go bowling, play tennis, or go golfing. They will take photos and present them to discredit your claim with the theory that anyone who can do those activities is also in condition to work.

While they can certainly be wrong, many times they are also right.