Murdered: Nona Belomesoff met her alleged
killer on Facebook.
Australian Federal Police (AFP) are calling for the social networking site Facebook to employ a law enforcement expert in Australia.
AFP assistant commissioner Neil Gaughan is joining six senior law enforcement officials from around the world in Washington today for a US Department of Justice meeting about the social networking site.
The meeting follows the death of Sydney teenager Nona Belomesoff, who met her alleged killer via Facebook.
Police said her killer set up a fake Facebook identity and led the teenager to think she would have work with an animal welfare group.
The AFP wants Facebook to appoint a dedicated law enforcement liaison officer in Australia to match individual user accounts to internet addresses.
Assistant commissioner Gaughan says police are seeing a number of crimes linked to the social networking site.
"We're certainly seeing instances of stalking and grooming people for sexual activity. We are seeing instances where illegal content is being shared amongst users as well," he said.
"So there is criminality within that particular environment and we need to come up with strategies to address that."
The AFP is expecting strong support from its international counterparts at the meeting.
"The concerns that Australian law enforcement have are shared by our international colleagues," assistant commissioner Gaughan said.
"We're pretty much [in] concensus. We just need a united front and then we'll put that to Facebook and hopefully we'll get some action."
Assistant commissioner Gaughan says he is confident Facebook will come onboard.
"You've only got to read the media over the last couple of days to realise they are concerned about some of the privacy settings they've put in place," he said.
"They're probably going to try and simplify those for people and we applaud them for that initiative."
The AFP would also like to see Facebook's law enforcement guidelines match Australian law.
Assistant Commissioner Gaughan says more needs to be done to stop cases of stalking, grooming and sharing of illegal information.
"What I'll be pushing for from an Australian perspective is a dedicated law enforcement liaison person in Australia," he said.
"I'd also like to see a 'report abuse' button on each profile page to make it easier for people to report their concerns to law enforcement.
"I'd also like to see some age verification software placed on the system so we don't have people under the age of 13 becoming members of Facebook."
Facebook says it already has a dedicated employee who supports law enforcement requests from Australia.
A spokeswoman for the company says it also has an established 24-hour dedicated law enforcement liaison team.
