In the last article we discussed the controversial issue of locating people through the process of “geotagging” their posted articles or photos on various social sites. In this installment we will examine some of those sites as well as discuss the programs required to “geotag” a posted photograph.
Let’s begin with one of the most widely used and easiest to manipulate sites, Facebook, www.facebook.com. Facebook has a timeline feature that allows a photo or post to be tagged with a geographical location, and features a pull up map which allows the tracer to see the times and places where the user has checked in. By utilizing this feature to track where and when the user was at any given location the tracer has the ability to build a profile which can help track habits and patterns. The tracer may then project where the target will be at a given point in time.
Facebook Places
Facebook Places, www.facebook.com/places, is an extension of Facebook that is similar to Foursquare in that it gives the user’s location information when they post information using a mobile application. This feature is automatically active on all Facebook accounts until it is disabled.
Foursquare
Foursquare, www.foursquare.com, is a location-based social net-working site for mobile devices where users “check-in” and by doing so receive awards and badges. Foursquare boasts a user base of over four million members and has apps for iPhone, An-droid, Windows Phone 7, Blackberry and Windows OS. Users of Foursquare often publish their “check-ins” to their Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Twitter, www.twitter.com, is an online social networking ser-vice that enables users to send and read short 140-character messages called “tweets.” Registered users can read and post tweets, but unregistered users can only read them. Users access Twitter through the website interface, SMS, or mobile device app. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with more than 100 million users, who in 2012 posted 340 million tweets per day. The service also handled 1.6 billion search que-ries per day. In 2013 Twitter was one of the ten most-visited websites, and has been described as “the SMS of the Internet.” This site is a tracer’s paradise and the majority of the posts may be geotagged.
LevelUp
LevelUp, www.thelevelup.com, is a location based social net-working app which takes “checking in and paying your restau-rant bill” to a higher level by allowing companies access to a process where they can track not only their customers’ names, demographics and habits automatically with every payment but also their habits such as the day, time, location and method of payment inside the platform. By utilizing the analytics of this app, the real value in each payment is the story it tells about that customer. While Visa and MasterCard hoard customer data to strengthen their own rewards programs, LevelUp exposes it to you to engage your customers. 14,000+ partners rely on LevelUp to power their business. With access to this site, all the tracer has to do is to follow the yellow brick road to success.
For many, social media sites could be just a place to ex-press your voice or have some fun. For the professional tracers, the daily use of social media sites to locate people and things is serious business. Most people would be amazed at the powerful connections social media sites have. All it takes is a keystroke for a professional tracer to acquire volumes of information on a person, their location, their employment, their friends and their habits, where they have been and what they have been doing. It is all there in plain sight on the social media sites.
Tracers should be advised that many of these social networking sites such as Gowalla, Loopt and Brightkite are active for a while then are either bought out by larger entities or just fade into oblivion. Many remain on the net but have changed names. But for every social site that fades away, another one is just on the horizon. The professional tracer is always looking for sources and geotagging on social sites will continue to be another tool which aides the men and women in the tracing and interdiction industry.
In the next installment we will delve into the software that will allow the tracer to extract geodata from postings and photographs. Until then, good luck and good hunting!
Ron Brown is a member of the National Association of Fraud Investigators and the author of “MANHUNT: The Book.” Contact him at