With new information coming out every day about the terrorist attack in San Bernadino, it’s becoming more and more evident that privacy concerns related to social media will need to change.
Social media monitoring is useful for businesses, but also for law enforcement, Homeland Security, and other agencies whose goal is to keep US citizens safe. Current social media monitoring technology that is available to businesses, marketers, and the like is limited to public facing information, as it should be.
It has come to light in the wake of this tragedy that terrorists are able to fall under the radar in part with the use of apps and social programs that use encryption that cannot be collected. In fact, information was circulating across the news wires that, even if law enforcement approached an app developer to obtain information, they would be unable to do so.
While privacy is of everyone’s concern, this news is rather unsettling. It is a difficult situation for those app developers or who run social sites – it’s a cross between ensuring privacy for its users, but not allowing that privacy to protect citizens.
One thought that I read in a recent article offered a solution that might help in some small way. First, developers need to have a way to use encrypted content to provide to law enforcement in cases where there is chatter that may indicate a terrorist plot, making it as difficult as possible for those wishing to do harm an opportunity to “go dark.”
There is also a call for those in the social media industry to be responsible for reporting any unusual or suspicious content to law enforcement as another means. According to the article, “This bill doesn’t require companies to take any additional actions to discover terrorist activity, it merely requires them to report such activity to law enforcement when they come across it.”
In the case of the San Bernadino attack, Facebook did find an account for one of the terrorists, under an alias, that contained helpful information to investigators. While monitoring this and finding it prior to the attack may or may not have stopped what ultimately happened, it may have raised concern to look into further and potentially put these individuals on the radar.
As the terrorists get smarter and technology gets more intricate, privacy issues may have to take a step back, just a bit, for all of us to be as safe as possible. Monitoring what you see online and following the mantra of, “If you see something, say something” will be just as important as corporations and developers monitoring on their end.