Social media enables constant surveillance of users by friends and others with access to their profiles and information. Recent research shows that people often do not adjust privacy settings on social media sites like Facebook even when given opportunities. Law enforcement also uses information publicly available on social media to track down suspects, as one example showed where a suspect was located after posting his location on Facebook. Overall social media allows extensive surveillance of users by both private individuals and companies collecting personal data.

1. Social SurveillanceBY USING SOCIAL MEDIA WE ARE UNDER CONSTANT
SURVEILLANCE BY NOT ONLY OUR SELECTED ‘FRIENDS’, BUT
THE WHOLE WORLD
DOES, OR SHOULD THE RECENT INFORMATION ON THE
LEVEL OF SOCIAL SURVEILLANCE HAVE AN IMPACT ON
HOW WE USE SOCIAL MEDIA?

2. Social Surveillance
Social surveillance is the use of Web 2.0 sites like Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare to
see what friends, family, and acquaintances are “up to” (Joinson 2008; Tokunaga
2011).
http://library.queensu.ca/ojs/index.php/surveillance-and-
society/article/viewFile/pub_dom/pub_dom

3. Surveillance and Social Media
 "'Social media' like Facebook or Twitter have become
tremendously popular in recent years. Their popularity
Provides New Opportunities for Data Collection by state and
private Companies, Which requires a critical and theoretical
focus on Social Media Surveillance.” Fuchs and Trottier (2015)
Fuchs, Christian
“users cannot control their peers, nor can they
control the intentions of those who control services
like Facebook means that the longer users live on
Facebook the more unprotected their lives are” Fuchs
and Trottier (2015)

4. Security and laws of social media
profiles
HEADLINE: “Social media mass surveillance is permitted by
law, says top UK official”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/17/mass-surveillance-social-media-permitted-uk-law-
charles-farr
“Legitmate legal target”

5. Social Survelliance and the law
Examples
In winter of 2009 fugitive Craig Lynch posted the below message on social media
Lynch posted this message, little did he know yes he was able to escape the police but
however was remaining in the public eye.

6. Our control on what social media
profiles portray
 “I’d been looking for this robbery suspect. Detectives were at a
dead end; I decide to look and see if the guy has Facebook. He
does, completely unsecured, and had just ‘checked-in’ at a strip
club. Search the lot, find a car matching the description of what he
was seen leaving the robbery in. Turns out to be stolen. Wait for him
to walk out, ID him, bring him to the detectives with their jaws
hanging open. Guy admitted to it all. I didn’t even have to use my
A.K.”
http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/the-new-inside-source-
for-police-forces-social-networks/#ixzz3ogW9Xt8i

7. Past research and statistics on
social media privacy
Northwestern University research paper questions regarding social media:
 During a year in which Facebook altered its privacy settings
accompanied by widespread media attention, to what extent did the
site’s users alter their settings?
 How does frequency of Facebook use relate to whether or not people
adjust their privacy settings?
 How does confidence in managing privacy settings correlate with the
practice of doing so?
 Is gender correlated with either confidence in or the practice of
managing privacy settings?
 Is general Internet user skill related to either confidence in or the
practice of managing privacy settings?

8. Past Research Results

9. Research Activity: Facebook Surveillance

19. References
 Bowcott, O. and Ball, J. (2014). Social media mass surveillance is permitted by law, says top UK
official. [online] the Guardian. Available at:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/17/mass-surveillance-social-media-permitted-uk-
law-charles-farr [Accessed 18 Oct. 2015].
 Boyd, D. and Hargittai, E. (2010). Facebook privacy settings: Who cares?. First Monday, 15(8).
 Fuchs, C. and Trottier, D. (2015). Towards a theoretical model of social media surveillance in
contemporary society. Communications, 40(1).
 Knibbs, K. (2013). In the online hunt for criminals, social media is the ultimate snitch. [online] Digital
Trends. Available at: http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/the-new-inside-source-for-
police-forces-social-networks/#ixzz3ogW9Xt8i [Accessed 18 Oct. 2015].
 Marwick, A. (2015). [online] Library.queensu.ca. Available at:
http://library.queensu.ca/ojs/index.php/surveillance-and-
society/article/viewFile/pub_dom/pub_dom [Accessed 18 Oct. 2015].