XPost: can.politics, bc.politics, van.general   
      
   "25 firms" working to spy on insured motorists through on-line social media.   
   And we wonder why our insurance rates are so high?   
      
      
   news.nationalpost.com/ - | April 23, 2015   
      
      
   B.C. auto insurance drops some private investigators for ‘cyber team’ that   
   evaluates claims by mining social media   
      
      
   VICTORIA — The Insurance Corp. of B.C. says it is increasingly shifting its   
   fraud investigations onto an internal team of cyber analysts, who can dig into   
   a person’s digital activities to see if they are lying about injury claims.   
      
   The Crown auto agency put out a tender last week to pre-qualify a new fleet of   
   private investigation firms that can help it conduct surveillance, canvass   
   neighbourhoods, comb through financials records, reconstruct accident scenes   
   and use other investigative techniques to prove people are being honest when   
   they claim compensation for injuries in vehicle accidents or try to obtain a   
   drivers licence.   
      
   But it won’t be hiring nearly as many private eyes as it did just a few years   
   ago, as   
   the corporation shifts investigations to an internal team that it says can do   
   much of the same investigative work online.   
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^   
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^   
      
   â€œWe have also seen our use of private investigators decline in recent years   
   due   
   to us refining our processes and increasing our in-house expertise and capacity   
   to undergo investigations into potentially fraudulent claims,â€� said ICBC   
   spokesman Adam Grossman.   
      
   â€œWe have our own cyber team within our Special Investigations Unit which   
   looks   
   into potentially exaggerated or fraudulent claims and carries out many of the   
   activities previously performed by private investigators, such as social media   
   searches.â€�   
      
   As many as 15 per cent of the 900,000 insurance claims ICBC receives annually   
   contain an element of fraud or exaggeration, the corporation has said. Fraud   
   costs each of ICBC’s three million customers between $100 and $150 each year.   
      
   ICBC said in the past it used more private investigators than needed, spending   
   as much as $14 million in 2009 on more than 100 firms.   
   ICBC now only retains 25 firms, with no guarantee of the amount of work   
   they’ll   
   get, and spends around $5.5 million on private investigators.   
      
   ICBC opened more than 6,300 investigations in 2014 for claims and driver   
   licensing fraud, which resulted in 131 charges against 100 people and a   
   conviction rate of 90 per cent, said Grossman.   
      
   The move away from private investigators — who could conduct physical   
   surveillance on a claimant, take video and interview their neighbours, friends   
   and family — appears in part a result of people’s willingness to put more   
   information about themselves on the Internet.   
      
   ICBC’s cyber team mines that potential treasure trove of pictures and status   
   updates from Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites.   
      
   The Professional Investigators’ Association of B.C. said private,   
   properly-licensed, firms still have a role in helping ICBC in complex cases,   
   including those involving organized crime.   
      
   â€œIt certainly is more cost effective to find information by going through   
   social media and open source analysis, however there’s always times where   
   other   
   investigative methods provide significant value,â€� said Taras Hryb, a   
   Vancouver   
   investigator who chairs the association’s ICBC committee.   
      
   â€œAnd those do require more time.  Especially when it comes to organized   
   crime,   
   some of these people are very sophisticated and may not be as vulnerable in the   
   digital world as might be someone who posts themselves on vacation water-skiing   
   when they’re apparently on disability.â€�   
      
   ICBC’s increased focus on in-house digital investigations is often used to   
   intimidate people in court, especially those who don’t have lawyers, said   
   Chris   
   Carta, a Vancouver lawyer from the Trial Lawyers Advocacy Group who specializes   
   in ICBC personal injury cases.   
      
      
   *A lot of time they are using it to try to scare people*   
      
   â€œA lot of time they are using it to try to scare people,â€� he said. “They   
   often   
   won’t tell you exactly what they’ve got, they’ll list investigative   
   report.â€�   
      
   It offers a “distorted viewâ€� of many people’s lives, because they post   
   mainly   
   happy events on Facebook and social media feeds, even if they are suffering   
   physically from an accident, said Carta.   
      
   Carta said the quality of ICBC’s investigations has declined in recent years   
   as   
   it reduced the use of private investigative firms.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)