Internet as source of info?

[basketballfan]

Random question but how commonly do you think that VO officers search the Internet to corroborate information. I am not concerned of anything online but moreso I try to keep my personal FB account private to the general public. Both our Facebook accounts are rather intertwined in each others and our child's lives so it would be a good source of information. I'm wondering whether I should make my profile searchable or more public so officers can find it if that's what they aim to do anyways. Do officers have special accounts with privileges for searching for less accessible accounts - I know that some law enforcement officers create fake accounts to scope out people, how far do you think these officers go?

 

[lleahdoll]

I'm kind of curious about this as well...

 

[Alurra71]

I don't think you need to undo the privacy settings of your account to accomodate immigration. I think they likely do a internet search like anyone might do using your name to see what pops up though. If I were a VO, I would, simply out of curiousity to try and get a feel for who this person is so I can help make a better decision, but then again, that might be against their rules so they can't be accused of some perceived discrimination if they don't agree with something someone is saying.

Who is to say? LOL

Anyway, I wouldn't make my information more accessible than it already is, if I were you. If you do that, you are only making yourself more vulnerable to those who are much less interested in your relationship for immigration purposes

 

[mikeymyke]

Well honestly, if you have nothing to hide, then you shouldn't be worried about them potentially checking your Facebook.

For me, I already gave Facebook printouts of both mine and my wife's Facebook postings/accounts, so I'm sure they could easily look us up if they wanted, but they won't find anything incriminating really.

 

[basketballfan]

Well honestly, if you have nothing to hide, then you shouldn't be worried about them potentially checking your Facebook.

On the other hand, I didn't send them our FB accounts as I think that we have a plausible relationship history and that could be gathered by the information that was sent via the paper application (i.e., we didn't meet online so FB/Skype etc may provide support but are not central to our case). I wouldn't have minded sending meta-data about our social media communication and think that a company should develop an app that generates a report on the quantity and type of communication between two parties on the various social media platforms but I didn't feel comfortable sending actual FB/Skype/Viber messages, which I understand may speak to the quality of communication but also the content of our personal and private lives.

Anyways I digress, I'm not worried about them checking our FBs for information about the genuineness of our relationship. I'm worried that if they cannot find our FBs (assuming we have them) or if they find us and discover that all our content is completely blocked they will consider that to be some form of obstruction. Indeed it is, as I hide my FB from employers, particularly my social justice views which may be seen in posts or comments and are my own and do not reflect my employer. I also don't use my legal name for FB so that my work/projects are the first hits an employer or colleague sees when they Google my name. Alurra doesn't really think that they can circumvent privacy settings and that there could be grounds for discrimination if private information is used inappropriately. I just really hope that they don't expect to find FB accounts or are disappointed to not find our personal information online