UK Local Authorities Analysing Peoples Social Media Accounts
UK Local Authorities Analysing Peoples Social Media Accounts | |
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Short Title | Local Authorities in Great Britain Analysing Peoples Social Media Accounts in Frames of SCOMINT |
Location | Great Britain |
Date | October 2020 |
Solove Harm | Increased Accessibility, Interrogation |
Information | Identifying, Behavioral, Preference, Knowledge and Belief, Social Network |
Threat Actors | Local authorities in the UK, Social media sites, Facebook, Twitter |
Individuals | |
Affected | People in the UK |
High Risk Groups | Ethnic Minority |
Tangible Harms |
Local Authorities in Great Britain are monitoring social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to find and analyse personal information about people as part of their intelligence gathering.
Description
Local Authorities (Councils) in the UK were found to be analysing people’s social media accounts, such as Facebook and Twitter, as part of their intelligence gathering and investigation tactics in areas such as council tax payments, children’s services, benefits and monitoring protests and demonstrations. This can be interpreted as Interrogation of social media for personal information.
'Social media monitoring’ (sometimes also known as ’SOCMINT’) is the analysis of the content and metadata of people’s social media posts, for example, to identify the political views, and relationships that you have with others online. It may include snooping on content posted to public and even private groups and pages. And it may involve ’scraping’ of data, which in effect enables someone to collect and analyse a huge amount of data about you, and then easily build profiles and predictions about you. Especially targeted at people from minority and migrant communities.
The fact that social media sites make it possible to search for personal information about people makes it an example of Increased Accessibility.
Breakdown
Threat: Local authorities probing social media sites for personal information of people as part of their intelligence
At-Risk group: People in the UK
Harm: Interrogation
Secondary Consequences: not known
Threat: Social media sites make it easy to search for and access personal information of people
At-Risk group: People in the UK
Harm: Increased Accessibility
Secondary Consequences: not known
Laws and Regulations
Sources
https://privacyinternational.org/act/migrants-asylum-rights-organisations-privacy-settings