Postal Service Agents Will Trawl Facebook, Dating Sites to Root Out Fraud

Next Gov reports:

A dishonest Postal Service employee, citing a bad back, says she can’t lift a thing, files for workers’ compensation, collects a paycheck and stays home from work. A simple visit to her Facebook page, however, shows the purportedly injured employee lifting weights at a bodybuilding competition.

That hypothetical situation comes from USPS Inspector General spokeswoman Agapi Doulaveris. She says it shows the value of social media as a source of information for the U.S. Postal Service’s Office of the Inspector General and its law enforcement agents, who investigate employee fraud and misconduct.

And the agency is now planning to train agents how to probe wayward personnel using social media and other open source data, Doulaveris said. The online monitoring will only key in on postal workers who have already come under their radar, she added.

Paid consultants are scheduled to teach agents "Internet reconnaissance" during a three-day June workshop at the office's Arlington, Virginia, headquarters, according to a November 2015 contracting notice.

Just a remind to those who are into Facebook.