• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, September 24, 2013

It’s an open secret that a large proportion of the worker’s compensation and disability claims paid by the U.S. government and state and local governments are, in a word, phony. Now some local governments are using social media to ferret out fraudsters by looking at information they share of their own free will.

According to local CBS station CBS13, Sacramento, CA has hired several private investigators to sift through social media looking for evidence of fraudulent claims -- often in the form of photos showing the individual in question isn’t actually injured. One city employee who claimed to have a debilitating back injury posted photos of himself dancing the night away at a club.

Overall hundreds of worker’s comp claims (both valid and fabricated) cost Sacramento around $5.6 million a year, and uncovering even just a few cases of fraud can save tens of thousands of dollars.

Of course this isn’t the first such use of social media. Back in 2011 I wrote about insurance companies using social media to uncover instances of insurance fraud, again often relating to a claim of personal injury. Divorce lawyers also use social media to build cases against clients’ spouses, by gathering evidence of infidelity, neglect or emotional cruelty, among other things.

Social media is also good for catching draft-dodgers. In 2010 the Israeli Defense Force revealed that it was using Facebook to catch female draft-dodgers who avoid military duty by pleading religious exemption –- but then post evidence of distinctly non-religious lifestyles, e.g. hitting the clubs in skimpy outfits. Back stateside the Department of Homeland Security used social networks to uncover fake “green card” marriages between U.S. citizens and immigrants for the purpose of obtaining residency or citizenship for the latter.