Lawmakers in Connecticut are going toe-to-toe with Facebook on how it detects and disables fraudulent accounts as part of a probe into claims that one of the state’s legislators was the victim of identity theft on the social media site.
Rep. Kim Rose said someone created a Facebook page using her name and photograph without her permission, and then requested money from her “friends.” Rose said she tried dozens of times to report the fraud to the company.
Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen said he wrote a letter to the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company, asking how many complaints it has received in the past 18 months about fraudulent or “hacked” accounts, how it respond and what safeguards are in place to detect or disable fake or hacked Facebook accounts. The letter requested that a Facebook representative respond by Feb. 22.
Rose said someone created a page using her name and began “friending” her Facebook friends. The person who created the page told her friends that she included them in a poverty grant and if they sent in $650, it would cover the taxes. One of Rose’s friends fell for the scam.
The legislator said the only way she found to contact Facebook about the fraudulent page and report it was to go to the page itself and post a comment. She is investigating how to make Facebook accountable after the failure to respond to her complaints.
Simon Axten, a Facebook spokesman, said the company takes security seriously and works to protect people from scams. This includes developing technical systems to flag and block suspicious behavior, including the creation of phony accounts. Axten also said the company works to educate people on how to protect themselves, using the Facebook security page.
