Chief’s Counsel: Undercover Online: Why Your Agency Needs a Social Network Investigations Policy

At this point, every chief law enforcement officer in the country recognizes the power and prevalence of social media. Many employ their own agency-sponsored social networking sites (Facebook), micro-blogging sites (Twitter), and photo and video sharing sites (YouTube). Chiefs use these interactive online formats to spread their messages, raise public awareness on important law enforcement issues, and strengthen ties to their own virtual community. Chiefs are also well aware of the dangers of social networking, the perils of an employee—sworn or nonsworn—who inappropriately releases sensitive law enforcement information or posts impeachable material in one of these formats. This awareness likely led to implementing a policy that governs both department and employee use of social networks with an eye toward protecting the reputation of the agency and the credibility of its members. To be sure, these are necessary, in fact, fundamental, policy measures that cover important issues in social networking. However, they do not mark the policy end. Rather, they are queued at the social networking starting line. The race for social networking information is on, and investigators left the starting blocks long ago, whether it was realized or not.