Facebook Identification Has The Time Come?

A recent report by Heather Kelly of CNN on August 3 2012, reveals that a staggering 83 Million Facebook accounts are fakes and dupes. Upon analyzing the magnitude of the amount of ‘fake’ Facebook accounts a range of reasons come to mind as to why a fake account may be created:

• Fraudulent Activity?
• Surreptitious Activity?
• Voyeurism?
• Employers Reviewing Applicants Activity?
• Employers Monitoring Employees Activity?
• Children Defying Parents Facebook Controls Or Bans?
• Terrorism?
• Espionage?
• Corporate Espionage?
• Harmless Fun?
• Stalking?

Overall, fake Facebook accounts not only pose a threat to ones personal safety they are posing a threat to national security, whereby some form of credibility is attached to persons who appear in a social circles therefore making it easier for the person to infiltrate social groups, friends, social clubs, employment pages and the like.

Whilst the fake Facebook account holder may not make direct contact with individuals once they are ‘accepted as ‘friends’ or are a ‘Fan’ of a particular page, they do however have a fair deal of access to persons or groups timelines and all the posts shared within the group may be infiltrated.

The aforementioned list of possible motives of the fake Facebook holder is by no means exhaustive and clearly identifies how the time has come for Facebook to be socially responsible and introduce a policy that is commonly known amongst US financial institutions as ‘Know Your Customer‘ (Referred to in Australia as a 100 Point Check). Under Know Your Customer legislation financial institutions must verify a persons identity with sufficient identification and or face severe financial and criminal sanctions.

All form of Social Media account verification will undoubtedly make the internet a safer place for all and whilst it will not eliminate anti social behaviour like bullying and stalking, it will make it easier for the relevant authorities to possibly identify who may be responsible for such activity.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/02/tech/social-media/facebook-fake-accounts/index.html

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