A federal official acknowledged Thursday that “a number” of government agencies conducted separate studies on whether examining social media accounts can yield useful information when background checks are conducted on people who apply to work at the federal government.
And according to the official, “most” agencies agree that social media can help officials learn more about the people they might hire.
“A number of pilots have been conducted by a number of agencies to look at the value of social media, and most of them have reached a similar conclusion: there can be valuable information in collecting social media,” said Charles Phalen, chief information officer at the National Background Investigations Bureau.
Phalen was testifying at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, whose chairman, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said it shouldn’t have been any surprise that looking at people’s Facebook, Twitter and other accounts might provide officials with valuable information.
“This is what drives people crazy about government,” Chaffetz said. “You had to conduct a study to find out if looking at social media would be valuable, and the conclusion is, it might be, yes?”
“C’mon,” he said. “Every single time there’s a terrorist attack, what’s the first thing the investigative body does? To go look at their social media.”
Phalen clarified that those studies are already done, and that the government is now studying how to “incorporate data [from surveying social media accounts] into a standard background investigative process.”
