NOW !

Social Media has become "mana from heaven" for ICBC. They have people who do nothing but scour Facebook, Blogger and Myspace looking for personal information about people who have made injury claims.

Why ?

Because it's an easy and sometimes very effective way of attempting to dig dirt on someone.

Are they legally allowed to do that?

There are no legal restrictions on ICBC's ability to access personal information that people post on their social media site.

What are they look for?

Photos, notes, blogs, etc. Basically, anything which can be used to make it appear that an individual isn't telling the truth about their injuries and/or their ability to work, play sports, party or do anything which they say they can't do.

The trouble here and what most people don't consider is that often there's more to an injured person's story than meets the naked eye. Maybe they were in pain at the time that photo shows them hiking. But the photo doesn't show the pain. Only the hiking.

What should I do?

If you are using sites like Facebook shut it down. Or at a minimum make sure that everything on your site is "kosher".
But don't stop there. Ask your friends to remove posted pictures of you or comments about you from their sites.

The skinny here is that nothing is truly private online.