A report published by the US Census Bureau in 2020 (the most recent available at the time of writing) found that while approximately 70 percent of custodial parents received at least some portion of the support payments they were owed, less than half received those payments in full.
This statistic is no surprise to those who work in collections, or in family law. While many of those who default on their child support obligations do so because of legitimate financial constraints, others are deliberate child support evaders. Differentiating between those facing genuine hardship and those gaming the system can be challenging, but social media intelligence (SOCMINT) can be an invaluable tool in such cases.
Let’s look at how SOCMINT might be used by a legal team or collections professionals in the conduct of child support investigations.
Defining SOCMINT and SOCMINT Tools
Broadly speaking, professionals can draw upon two large pools of data for skip tracing and collections purposes. One is regulated data, which is protected by law because of its sensitive nature and privacy implications. It’s drawn largely from consumers’ interactions with the formal financial sector, and available through longstanding data providers with deep ties to the financial, legal, law enforcement, and collections sectors.
The second pool consists of open-source intelligence (OSINT), which is data gathered from any combination of public sources. A subset of OSINT is social media intelligence, or SOCMINT, which draws its data from publicly viewable information on social media platforms.
SOCMINT data is often more timely than formal regulated data, because social media users may post or update their accounts several times in a given day. However, because these posts contain unverified information and are ephemeral (on many platforms account-holders may choose to delete posts at any time), SOCMINT data is not in itself as reliable as regulated data.
Social media posts can be fruitful sources of information, since users are often injudicious in sharing the details of their lives. But no matter how active a person of interest is on social media, locating their accounts they post on or and gleaning actionable information from them manually is both difficult and prohibitively time-intensive. To harness social media’s potential as an investigative tool, professionals require sophisticated software tools that can apply advanced analytics to data aggregated across multiple platforms.
Using SOCMINT Tools in Child Support Investigations
A powerful SOCMINT tool such as Spokeo for Business can be utilized to address many of the barriers to constructive use of social media data. Arguably the most important of these barriers is simply establishing which social media accounts are linked to the parent in question. Difficulties encountered in that pursuit may include:
- Platforms that permit anonymous or pseudonymous usage.
- Platforms that do not meaningfully verify users’ identity.
- The likelihood of multiple accounts with similar names, especially if the parent’s name is a common one.
- The possibility that the sought-for parent has changed physical location, or is using a previously unknown/yet-undisclosed phone number or email address to establish new accounts.
- The sheer number of social platforms currently in operation.
With Spokeo for Business, a search for a non-cooperative paying parent (obligor) can be performed using their social security number, name, prior addresses, known email accounts, or known telephone numbers. Spokeo’s powerful search algorithms draw from over 12 billion data points, incorporating both regulated and open-source data, to make connections that would otherwise be inaccessible or challenging for investigators to uncover.
Typical search results may include current and past addresses, potential employers and employment history, previously unknown phone numbers and email addresses linked to the parent, and social media accounts linked to the parent’s various phone numbers and email addresses. Some of this information may be immediately actionable in its own right. Otherwise, uncovering the parent’s social media presence can prove vital to investigators.
Use Cases for SOCMINT in Child Support Investigations
The obligor’s social media accounts can serve a number of purposes in a child support case. Family law is highly variable, and any attempt at a comprehensive overview of potential use cases is beyond the scope of this article, but a representative handful can serve to demonstrate the utility of Spokeo for Business in such investigations.
Serving Papers On an Uncooperative Obligor
A non-custodial parent may seek to evade service, which can slow the process of having a support order issued. While the court may permit alternative service methods, it’s usually necessary to first demonstrate several good-faith attempts at serving the order conventionally. This requires time and incurs additional costs, both of which may represent a hardship to the parent seeking support (the obligee).
When an uncooperative obligor cannot be located through the individual state’s Parent Locator Service or the Federal Parent Locator Service, their social media presence can fill that gap. A Spokeo search typically returns numerous social media accounts linked to the searched individual, should they exist. The search covers 120+ individual platforms, many of them not ordinarily thought of as social media.
Methodically reviewing each of those accounts will often reveal posts that:
- Self-report details of the obligor’s current location or living arrangements.
- Include physical check-ins or geotagged photos, which may be used to establish a location.
- May include photos containing recognizable furnishings, landmarks, or other details.
- Can collectively be used to establish a picture of the obligor’s habits and movement patterns, potentially identifying locations other than a residence where papers might be served.
Locating an Obligor When Payments are In Arrears
When support payments are in arrears or cease altogether, and the state or federal parent locator services are unable to locate the obligor, the obligee’s legal team may turn to a professional skip tracer, private investigator, or collections professional. When support payments are in arrears or cease altogether, and the state or federal parent locator services are unable to locate the obligor, the obligee’s legal team may turn to a professional skip tracer, private investigator, or collections professional.
Here, as with serving the initial support order on an obligor, scrutinizing their social media activity may reveal numerous details that can lead investigators to the obligor’s location. We have reviewed the use of social media in skip tracing and collections at greater length elsewhere on this blog.
Constraints On the Use of SOCMINT Tools
Although the use of SOCMINT (and more specifically, powerful SOCMINT tools like Spokeo for Business) holds great potential for locating child support evaders, and carrying out child support investigations in general, it has some clear limits.
The Need for Verification
Social media notoriously represents a limited and curated look into the account holder’s life. Posts made on social media cannot and should not be treated as factual until they can be verified and cross-checked through other means.
Corroboration in the form of posts from other social media users is useful, though not conclusive. Verification of employment from an employer, or eventually the state or federal new hires database, is ideal. In the case of addresses or phone numbers, verification through legacy regulated data sources, or by successfully establishing direct contact, can be conclusive.
Privacy Issues and Stalking
The use of social media to assess a parent’s lifestyle and financial status is legitimate, when they’re treated with caution as an unreliable proxy for hard financial data. It is less so when it becomes a fishing expedition, seeking leverage to be utilized against the other parent. This is unethical at the very least, and in some jurisdictions may run afoul of laws governing stalking and harassment.
A further legal and compliance issue can arise when a collections professional or other investigator takes advantage of regulated data obtained under an appropriate use case (such as collections) and utilizes it for other purposes.
Drawing Financial Judgements from SOCMINT
Powerful OSINT and SOCMINT tools like Spokeo for Business can provide an illuminating window into the life of a search’s subject. What they cannot do is furnish a legal basis for any meaningful assessment of the search subject’s financial status or capability, whether that be a credit decision, a landlord’s rental decision, or the ability to pay a given dollar amount in child support.
Spokeo is not a consumer reporting agency as defined by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and should not be used for any purpose covered by the FCRA.
Incorporating SOCMINT Into Your Workflow
As with any other tool, assessing Spokeo for Business in a hands-on setting is the most practical evaluation method. Whether in family law or collections, a hands-on trial provides the opportunity to determine how powerful the SOCMINT tool could be when integrated into your existing workflows, and to gauge how its abilities impact real-world challenges encountered in your practice.
To arrange a trial, set up a demonstration, or obtain a more detailed explanation of the product’s capabilities, reach out to our team using the contact information on our Skip Tracing and Collections page.
Sources
Fatherly: Deadbeat Dad: The Myth and Reality of America’s Feckless Fathers
US Census Bureau: Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support: 2017
CustodyXChange: Serving Child Support Papers: Who Serves and More
Office of Child Support Services: Overview of the Federal Parent Locator Service