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| Identity theft of the most heartbreaking kind |
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| TASLEEM MAWJI |
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10/13/2009 - Cancer victim’s daughter sees mom’s picture in drug ad on Facebook
By TASLEEM MAWJI
Tue. Oct 13 - 4:45 AM
[Fifteen-year-old Shelby Breimer holds a photo of her mother, Helen Breimer, who died of breast and lung cancer nine months ago. (Ingrid Bulmer / Staff)]
Fifteen-year-old Shelby Breimer holds a photo of her mother, Helen Breimer, who died of breast and lung cancer nine months ago. (Ingrid Bulmer / Staff)
Helen Breimer of Truro died of cancer nine months ago, but when her daughter Shelby checked her mother’s Facebook account on Oct. 1, her mother’s status had been updated.
Her mother’s profile photo, a picture of her on horseback, was now hawking colon cleanser and claiming she had lost 8½ pounds.
"Her page had been updated and I was just like, how?" said Shelby, 15.
Nova Scotia privacy lawyer David Fraser said there have been a lot of these cases in the last couple of weeks and this form of spam is relatively new.
"All of these seem to be connected to Facebook Mobile," said Mr. Fraser.
"It uses the ability that Facebook has that you can update your status from your cellphone."
The company that hacked into Helen Breimer’s account sells a product called CleanseProX. Some of the website addresses the company uses are purgecolon.net and expresscolon.net.
Friends and family of Ms. Breimer called the company to get answers and were promised by a call centre supervisor that the ad would be removed and that the company would post an apology on Facebook.
Two days later, there was no apology and a new ad was on Ms. Breimer’s page.
"It was shocking at first," said Shelby, "and now it’s to the point that a lot of people are just, myself included, we’re just all angry."
Kevin Langer, a supervisor at CleanseProX’s call centre, told The Chronicle Herald that he was surprised and that management would investigate the matter. CleanseProX’s headquarters are in Vancouver.
He hung up the phone after realizing that he was talking to a reporter.
Mr. Fraser said that he does not think hackers are using text messages but that someone has figured out how to impersonate people on Facebook.
A hacker signs up a Facebook user for the mobile application and then the hacker changes the user’s status so that ads can be put on an individual’s Facebook page, he said.
"That’s what it was updated from, which confused me," said Shelby. "She didn’t have (a mobile application and) from a cellphone someone had gone in and changed the status."
Michael Geist, a University of Ottawa professor who specializes in Internet law, said that the problem lies in Canada’s lack of anti-spam legislation.
"Part of the problem is that when there is spamming activity taking place or spammers in Canada, there’s virtually nothing that we can do about it."
Mr. Geist said the proposed Electronic Commerce Protection Act would give individuals and websites like Facebook the ability to file lawsuits in Canada and would also give enforcement agencies like the privacy commissioner and the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission the ability to take action against spammers.
But Mr. Fraser said he doesn’t believe that the proposed act would address a case like this.
"This is more a case of just straight fraud and impersonation," which is covered by existing legislation, he said.
Mr. Fraser also said that it would present another concern if anti-spam legislation was updated so that it could somehow interpret personal Facebook updates as spam.
Mr. Fraser said Facebook should perhaps disable status updates for someone who has died.
"I do think it’s unfortunate that there’s not as much information out there from Facebook and from others on really getting to the bottom of it and figuring out how this is happening and how you can protect yourself," he said.
Shelby’s family is thinking about taking legal action against CleanseProX, but for now, Shelby said she will be more careful on Facebook and she encourages others to do the same.
She said her mother, who died of breast and lung cancer, was the type of person who would have taken action if a situation like this arose. |
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