The issue of crime and the use of social media for detection has been on the rise. For many years, social media was not in the public domain for crime detection.
However, its use has changed and provides the police with a platform to detect crime. Clearly, social media is not being used only for fun or entertainment but has become a reliable tool for crime detection.
Crime Detection
Crime detection occurs in three phases: the realization that a crime has been detected and the identification of a suspect. The third phase involves gathering sufficient evidence to present the criminal before a court.
Social media facilitates this process by enabling the police or others to identify criminal activities from people’s posts. In some cases, the people might be well-known criminals. Visit this site to check other people’s criminal records.
How Social Media Facilitates Crime Detection
People use various social media platforms to communicate about their daily lives with friends and family. The things that individuals post on these platforms could have a lot of information, reliable in crime detection. An example is the case of domestic violence or rape cases.
Some people might be too shy to report such incidents to the police, but eventually, they post them on social media platforms. In such a case, people might raise the alarm regarding criminal activity to allow the police to take the necessary action.
The main reason why various criminal activities get detected on social media is the crime’s nature. For instance, crimes considered an embarrassment to the victim are rarely reported but can be detected through social media.
In other cases, an individual might not know they have been a victim of criminal activities. When such individuals share their stories, people with knowledge but such criminal activities would inform the authorities.
Social media also facilitates crime detection because some criminals might unknowingly leave traces of their criminal activities on their posts. Generally, criminals might not consider the use of social media as a means of sharing their activities in a public arena.
But they forget to hide information that reveals their motives and the crime they commit. Through such information, the police are informed of criminal activities in real-time through various platforms.
In addition, friends and family members of a criminal might also post details that expose crimes committed by them. An example is the case of bank robbery.
Cases have been reported whereby the family members or friends posted pictures of the money flaunting on social media. These activities trigger an investigation, acting as the basis for crime detection.
Social Media as a Tool for Future Crime Detection
When criminal activity is detected through social media platforms, the authorities keep records of the entire process. Criminals could transfer the techniques of committing crimes to other criminal activities.
These behaviors provide cybersecurity experts sufficient data to use in the future while monitoring criminal activities. For instance, when a terrorist attack is detected through social media, security experts would flag the keywords which facilitated the detection.
If such a keyword appears in a post in the future, it will trigger investigations. Authorities would use the information to determine whether a crime occurred or was about to happen.
Additionally, criminal activities can be detected using social media because criminals tend to communicate with their friends and family about their criminal activities and call for an investigation.
The details could predict other crimes that have not been reported. For instance, when a bank robbery has been reported through social media, the police need to monitor whether such a group of people is planning other criminal activities.
The wide use of computers has facilitated many criminal activities, such as phishing. Many people rarely detect phishing activities until they have happened. When the links used in this criminal activity are posted online, cybersecurity experts can flag them for further investigation.
Experts have done a lot of research about social media criminal activities. The findings from these investigations are being saved for future use. In most cases, they create a pattern that would be highly useful in social media crime detection in the future.
Has Crime Detection Through Social Media Increased?
Cases of crime detection through social media have increased as the use of social media has become more popular.
There is a culture of reporting crimes through various platforms like newspapers, television, and radio stations. However, most people prefer social media to share information about different issues, including criminal activities.
Social media has played a significant role in enhancing information sharing among people. The process has facilitated crime detection from such platforms on a vast scale.
With the wide access to social media, it is no surprise that most criminal activities are reported through them. The authorities have embraced social media to detect crimes and prosecute the liable parties. At times, they keep records of such cases for future use.