Facebook for Investigators

Description

In this self paced online course participants will develop competent investigative strategies for exploiting Facebook and "deep diving" into the user data. Facebook continues to be the largest social media site with over 2 billion users worldwide (2019). However, many investigators are either reluctant to use, or fail to fully exploit, Facebook and it’s phenomenal search engine. This is due to:

• A fear of social media in general and Facebook in particular
• They have never been taught how to properly exploit Facebook
• They rely on the office “geek” to find the information for them (who often misses a lot of the available information)

When Offered

• Online
• Course length: 4 weeks / 25 hours

Current 2025 course offerings:

• January 6, 2025 – February 3, 2025
• February 3, 2025 – March 3, 2025
• March 3, 2025 – March 31, 2025
• March 31, 2025 – April 28, 2025
• May 5, 2025 – May 26, 2025
• September 2, 2025 – September 30, 2025
• September 29, 2025 – October 27, 2025
• November 3, 2025 – December 1, 2025

Who Should Take This Course

• Any investigator that wants a “deep dive” into Facebook to exploit all of its search capabilities and user data.

Prerequisite

Much of the information found on Facebook allows us to branch off onto other important social media websites.

• Familiarity with the Internet and social media,
• We recommend that you take the Creating Effective Covert Accounts course to ensure you create a proper covert account,
• If you are new to OSINT we suggest that you start with either our Internet Lite or our Internet for Investigators Level I & Internet for Investigators Level II courses.

Course Goals

Upon the successful completion of this program students will be able to competently data mine Facebook. By learning to properly use Facebook, and all of its features, the student will be able to gather information on:

• Their subject (and possibly locate other subjects),
• Their witness (and possibly locate other witnesses),
• Their victim (and possibly locate other victims),
• The crime itself (video and images),
• Monitor events.

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, the learner will be able to:

• Demonstrate, through exploiting Facebook's search engine, how to conduct an investigation on an individual, group or event;
• Demonstrate how to exploit the search features of Facebook;
• Set up their Facebook account for covert investigations;
• State the importance of how to capture online information;
• Set up "sock puppets" and why it's important to follow certain protocols;

Text & Resource Material

Students will require the following:

• Laptop or desktop that uses either the Windows, MAC or Linux operating system,
• The Chrome web browser,
• Unrestricted Internet access,
• Students will be supplied with an eManual.

Course Evaluation

• Specific course evaluation information will be provided by the instructor at the start of the course.
• Most courses have short quizzes at the end of each unit and a "final scenario" at the end of the course.
• Typically, most of the courses are either a P/F or, require the student to finish the course with a 70% average.

Cost

The course price is listed for each college:

• Through Holland College
• Through the Justice Institute of BC