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Privacy and Ethics For Social Media In Investigations

By William Michael Jr. and Laura Hammargren
February 28, 2014

It begins with a name ' perhaps an employee alleged to have been involved in misconduct or a suspected whistleblower. Regardless of the origin of identity, if the person is relevant to a company's internal investigation, whatever information that can be provided is power for the company, the power to make informed decisions.

Thus, the initial instinct of those conducting such investigations is to find all relevant information. Often, such individuals will have made a direct record of their employment history on LinkedIn and potentially pontificated about life, work, thoughts and deeds on Facebook. Although Twitter can, at times, be unintelligible, those tweets are additional 140-character insights into that person's potential knowledge. All it takes to find out is some quick and inexpensive Internet browsing.

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