Russia’s Investigative Committee to monitor social networks for criminal cases
Russia’s Investigative Committee said it will monitor Facebook, Twitter and Instagram along with other social networks for evidence and reactions on serious crimes. The top law enforcement agency has posted a contract for the creation of the system.
The winner of the 1.2-million-ruble (about $38,000) contract,
expected to be named by the end of June, will be tasked with
helping the Investigative Committee monitor 15,000 print
publications and 8,500 online sources, as well as blogs and social
networks, to find information on crimes and public reactions to
them.
The list of sites the Committee plans to monitor round-the-clock
includes popular Russian social networks Vkontakte and
Odnoklassniki (‘Classmates’), Twitter, LiveJournal, video-hosting
websites Youtube and Rutube, and location-based social network
Foursquare.
The Committee claims that the system will track down the sources
of Web posts in order to determine the causes of crimes, and help
to solve them, Russian news website Lenta.ru reported
However, it is unclear if the Committee will focus only on
Russian websites and crimes committed in Russia – the contract says
that the system should be able to operate in Russian, English and
German. And besides information on crimes, the Investigative
Committee is also interested in online reactions to its
work.
The Investigative Committee launched a similar scheme in January
2013, signing a contract worth 1.1 million rubles ($35,000) with
Intergrum Company to monitor media coverage of the Committee’s
work.
The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation was formed
in January 2011 to probe high-profile cases, similar to the US
Federal Bureau of Investigation. The agency’s predecessor was the
Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General’s Office (SKP),
which was formed in 2007. The Committee, which employs over 20,000,
is aimed at establishing a wall of separation between the
prosecution and the preliminary investigation in criminal
cases.
