The St. Louis Fusion Center recently issued an officer safety alert regarding a change to Facebook’s search functionality that presents a security concern for officers. The August advisory warns officers that they need to update their Facebook privacy settings to ensure people cannot locate law enforcement employees and obtain personal information.
The new search feature now allows users to conduct vague search phrases that return much wider results such as:
People who are police officers and live nearby
People who work for the BLANK BLANK Police Department
The concern is that now anyone can find local police officers and obtain personal information, family members, their list of “friends”, etc.
To remove yourself from this search functionality, police officers (and any other public safety official or citizen), should engage the privacy controls and settings to maintain security of personal information.
Here’s more information for you (click image to expand):
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