Spring Break
Police use networking sites
Joshua Kurtz
Issue date: 4/10/09 Section: News
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The Drexel University Police Department has not used this practice of searching student profiles, although Ed Spangler, Drexel University director of Police Operations, said the University would use these sites as a tool if doing so could help them solve a case.
"I have heard of other [police] departments that have used Facebook," Spangler said.
Spangler said while Facebook, MySpace and similar sites could prove to be a valuable tool in certain cases, he thinks that the best way to prevent crime is still one-on-one interaction. "We don't actively go looking on Facebook," Spangler said.
According to The Washington Post, some students have found the practice to be an invasion of privacy. Spangler, however, said he does not believe this is the case.
Facebook, for instance, has an option to allow students to make their profiles private and limit the access other users have to it. Spangler said students worried about an invasion of privacy could choose this option to alleviate their concerns.
Spangler could not identify any specific universities that employ the practice.
"The Division of Public Safety [at Penn] uses a number of techniques and tools to aid them in their investigations. However, we can not release specifics on our police department operations," according to a statement from Penn Public Safety.
The Drexel police force is constantly looking at new strategies; the Drexel police have implemented a community outreach program to help them better interact with students at residence halls, Spangler added.
According to The Washington Post, one school whose police look at students' online information is Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax County, Va. The school has over four thousand students, making it the largest of its kind in the state.
Officer Freddie Rappina, who is based at the school, said employing the strategy has helped police at the school prevent many fights in addition to other accomplishments.
Police forces are not the only ones who have searched social networking sites for information about students, according to The Washington Post. Potential employers and college admissions officers have also searched these sites for information.
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