FBI Needs To Track Social Media To Do Their Job Well, According to Quid CTO

The FBI recently sent out a request to tech companies asking for proposals in the development of a social media application. The bureau is seeking input for a system that would alert it of matters dealing with terrorism, crime, and anything else pertaining to national security.

Although the FBI has said that it would only utilize the "publicly available" information that users provide, some consumer groups have raised both privacy and free speech concerns. WebProNews spoke with Sean Gourley, the co-founder and CTO of quantitative analytics firm Quid, who told us that, while these concerns are "natural," it was also natural that the FBI would need to monitor social networking sites in order to better protect the country.

As he explained, government tracking has been around for a long time. Using social media to do it today is simply an evolution of technological advances. Gourley admits that it will be challenging but said the FBI needed to take advantage of the data on social media sites.