She Was Doing WHAT?!?

Disclaimer: Verify company policy and legal guidelines regarding protection of personal employee data and privacy prior to conducting an investigation of social media accounts.

You know it’s a compelling case when your HR business partner is caught off-guard by the revelation. This was the response my team received after revealing the findings of a cursory social media investigation conducted before an upcoming interview.

The issue was relatively trivial. The subject, an assistant manager at the location, was involved in a minor policy-related violation. Even if this individual admitted to violating the policy in question, the repercussion would have been limited to a write-up. Nothing more. Regardless of the underlying evidence, we still went about our routine of reviewing the social media footprint of the subject. In doing so, we located a video posted by the assistant manager on her Facebook page.

She was seen in the cash office, after hours, with doors open, bills spread over the counter, and the safe wide open—all while smoking (and we’re not talking about cigarettes)! The video was posted to her personal, PUBLIC, Facebook profile. In addition to the video, when looking through the “comments” section, we discovered one of the stores’ OTHER assistant managers had commented on the photo with unapologetic laughter.

So, as you can imagine, the interview initially scheduled to take place regarding a minor policy infraction, ended up evolving into something far different.

Social media is a treasure trove of personal, often relevant information at the disposal of any investigator willing to take the time to discover it. When preparing for an interview, no matter the nature of the offense, the investigator should plan to obtain background information on the subject. This could involve anything from running their criminal record to obtaining their HR file to speaking with individuals who may be able to provide knowledge of the prospective interviewee.

What is often overlooked, is the power of leveraging social media queries to aid in building the subject profile.

Going into the conversation armed with the subject’s personal data, allows the interviewer to strategically craft their approach to elicit the maximum amount of truthful information. It also provides the interviewer with a baseline reference of background information to corroborate or disprove statements introduced throughout the conversation.

Many investigators have told me, “Well, I always try to quickly look them up on Facebook, or something, before I sit down with them.” While an effort is being made, it’s just barely scratching the surface of where the hunt could (and likely will) take you. I’d venture to guess everyone reading this article has observed firsthand the volume of unnecessary information that people share on social media platforms.

…or have none of you met my mom?

What most of these over-sharers fail to consider (or generally don’t care about), is how easily accessible this data is to anyone willing to take the time to find it.

My suggestion: Take the time to find it.

It’s not a stretch to start your social media deep dive armed only with the employee name and email address and walk away with any or all of the following:

• Marital status
• Children
• Financial status (perceived through photos and reality via comments)
• Family members
• Close acquaintances
• Location (concerning the event in question)
• General health/Physical capabilities (especially for workers comp cases)
• Outlook on current/former jobs and peers
• Political affiliation
• Religious affiliation
• Hobbies
• Education level
• Criminal history

And the list goes on.

Let’s take a hypothetical scenario:

You are about to conduct a subject interview of, let’s call him Dave, who allegedly made a threatening comment to a co-worker. You have his HR file, which includes all of his basic personal identifying information. You start on Facebook and locate a profile where the listed photo (remember this for later in the article) matches your subject, Dave. After spending a couple of minutes scrolling through his profile, you obtain a list of two “potential” family members, along with three other people who appear to be close with him. You make this assumption based on the frequency of photos where they appear together, in addition to one individual who frequently comments on Dave’s posts.

You observe Dave has posted a few comments alluding to being “frustrated” at work—explicitly referring to an unnamed coworker. You also notice some of the posted photos are linked to Dave’s Instagram profile, now providing you with the associated username for that platform—which you can dive into next.

With the newly acquired information, you can now run similar queries on each of the individuals who were “associated” with Dave.

As you can see based on the example above, once you start down a path, you will be presented with one open door after the other that you can continue to walk through, each one providing more information than the last. You’ll find yourself checking the clock, and realizing you’ve spent the last few hours digging into this individual’s digital footprint, but it’s not for nothing.  You went in with only an HR file, and you will likely be walking out with intimate knowledge critical to your investigation/interview.

Starting with a focused objective and staying true to the objective is key.

Ask yourself, “What am I looking to achieve?” Whether you’re simply trying to gain insight on the background of a witness, hoping to find incriminating/mitigating evidence before a suspect interview or just corroborating known information—the path taken can lead you in a thousand different directions.

Don’t undervalue the step of establishing your intent BEFORE getting started on your quest.

What often happens if the investigator goes in without clarity for cause, is distraction settles in. Take our hypothetical example with Dave. If you went in without a codified goal in mind, you could have easily “come to” after an hour of digging, only to realize that you’ve been taking notes for a cornflake casserole recipe posted on the profile of Dave’s great aunt, twice removed.

Targeted goals are critical for staying focused and maximizing your efficiency with the investigation.

Believe it or not, there’s more to social media than Facebook—a lot more. As School House Rock so eloquently preaches, “knowledge is power.” Let’s look at a few simple resources available to the public and offer a helping hand to the eager investigator:

Spokeo:

Spokeo isn’t new to the social media investigators arsenal, but there’s a reason it’s still around today—it helps. This site assists in combing through sixty of the most popular social media sites in search for multiple profiles all connected via the same email address. So, once you obtain the individual’s email, you can start down the Spokeo trail.

Geosocialfootprint.com:

Initially created to be used as a research tool, this site offers the ability to create a location “footprint” associated with the Twitter handle in question. It aggregates all location data tied to the tweets from the handle in question and plots the data directly onto a map. Visually, this a great tool to start conceptualizing your subject’s known locations during the timeframe of interest.

Knowem:

I’m going to share a personal, terribly embarrassing story with you—strictly for educational purposes. When I was in 6^th grade, I was sitting around with one of my good buddies trying to come up with our first AOL Instant Messenger screen name.

Now, this was a big deal at the time—this name would be synonymous with who we were as 11-year-olds.

All our potential coolness would be riding on this paramount choice. After what felt like hours of intellectual debate amongst the two of us, the song “Ghetto Superstar” came on the radio. It was as if the divine walls to juvenile wisdom came tumbling down. And in that moment, that vital, pivotal moment, my friend shouted, “I’ve got it! I’m going to be “Supastar8450!”. Not wanting to be left out of his inspirational decisiveness, I piggybacked.

“Perfect! I’ll be Ghetto86842!”

So, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. The screenname for the first few years of my online existence was Ghetto86842.

A true trailblazer, I was.

Now, how is this relevant to Knowem? Had someone wanted to do some digging to find out what 11-year-old me was up to, they could have searched my ridiculous screenname to see if there were other profiles linked to the same handle. This is especially helpful if you are looking for sister accounts across various platforms. When the handle doesn’t include the person of interest’s actual name, using a resource like Knowem can be clutch. Had I owned multiple accounts across various platforms with the username “Ghetto86842”, Knowem would have been able to find the link and provide a list of all accounts associated with that depressingly terrible handle.

Google (ever heard of it?):

The last resource I’ll cover is without question the most obvious: GOOGLE, people! Typing personal data points into Google often uncovers a wealth of knowledge that can serve as the springboard to your investigation. When searching on Google, or just about any search engine for that matter, you’ll save a lot of time and heartache by familiarizing yourself with “Boolean Operators”.

While the term brings one to imagine these “operators” are tools of vast complexity with alien origin, that couldn’t be further from the truth. They are simple words (AND, OR, NOT or AND NOT) used to enhance the outcome of the intended search parameters. Using these clever conjunctions properly allows the investigator to comb through likely relevant results, rather than looking for the needle in a haystack.

Another helpful Google search function is the use of the “reverse image” query. Similar to how people often use the same username across multiple platforms, they tend to use the same profile photo as well. Running a reverse image search of the known profile photo could surface new landing pages previously unknown to the investigator.

While these are just a few of the resources available, there are many, many more, that can be of great assistance to the aspiring social media detective. Some resources appear on the scene and are immediate game-changers (think Facebook Graph Search, Stalk scan..etc), but only end up lasting for a brief moment in time. Staying relevant with the best tools simply requires the investigator to remain vigilant to industry trends. In addition to staying up to speed with trends, it’s also beneficial if the investigator has a level of personal expertise navigating the social media realm.

The easiest way to accomplish this is either by creating and USING (careful not to overshare) the sites on your own, or, if the thought of having an Instagram or TikTok account is the stuff your nightmares are made of—do a little reading on the side to stay informed.

Like all things, if you want to become (and remain), a savvy social media investigator—you need to practice, practice and practice some more. And if you’re considering taking the leap and creating an account, feel free to reach out to me for username suggestions.

Based off my track record, I’m clearly a natural.

Yours Truly,

Ghetto86842

Tony Paixão, CFI, CFE

Tony Paixão, CFE, CFI, is a Certified Forensic Interviewer, speaker and consultant for Wicklander-Zulawski & Associates, Inc. (WZ). Tony has served in a variety of roles both in the public and private sectors. He is also an active member of the International Association of Interviewers (IAI). Tony has conducted investigations and interrogations for hundreds of cases ranging from retail fraud to homicide to sexual assault and employee relations matters.

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