Social media as an effective tool for identifying, solving, and investigating crimes

The article substantiates promising directions of using information obtained from a social network (digital footprint) in order to identify, disclose and investigate crimes, and provides the experience of Canada and Russia. The author argues that the information contained on personal pages of social networks allows to identify the identity of the suspect/accused/witness/victim, to find accomplices and tools of the crime, to identify important circumstances of importance for the criminal case. The author of the article studied a scientific method for diagnosing a person’s personality traits, which allows for the creation of a psychological profile and the prediction of future behavior. The method involves profiling (profiling) a person and studying authentication systems based on artificial intelligence, which provide access to the entire database of a specific account, allowing for the evaluation of statistics (such as the number of page visits, account activity, and more) and the creation of a comprehensive user database.