Saturday, October 23, 2010

USCIS Memo re Social Networking Sites and Importance for Fraud Investigations


USCIS Memo re Social Networking Sites Fraud Investigations

Narcissistic tendencies in many people fuels a need to have a large group of “friends” link to their pages and many of these people accept cyber-friends that they don’t even know. This provides an excellent vantage point for FDNS to observe the daily life of beneficiaries and petitioners who are suspected of fraudulent activities. Generally, people on these sites speak honestly in their network because all of their friends and family are interacting with them via IM’s (Instant Messages), Blogs (Weblog journals), etc. This social networking gives FDNS an opportunity to reveal fraud by browsing these sites to see if petitioners and beneficiaries are in a valid relationship or are attempting to deceive CIS about their relationship. Once a user posts online, they create a public record and timeline of their activities. In essence using MySpace and other like sites is akin to doing an unannounced cyber “site-visit” on a petitioners and beneficiaries.

No comments:

Post a Comment