By Dan Nephin
Intelligencer Journal
LANCASTER, Pa. The direct Twitter message bearing the Lancaster city police logo was ominous, especially given the city’s surveillance camera system.
It read: “you didnt (sic) see them taping you,” and it appeared to link to a Facebook application that asked the recipient to sign in to view the video.
But police didn’t send the message to followers Saturday, nor did they send another one about an iPad giveaway, which also had a link seeking personal information.
Lt. Todd Umstead, the department’s public information officer, called it a “phishing” scam, but he said the department’s Twitter account hasn’t been hacked.
The likely intent was to get people to divulge personal information, according to Umstead.
“We were never hacked. No one ever got into our actual Twitter account,” he said. “This was more like getting a fake email from someone pretending to be your bank, phone provider, etc.”
The department tweeted about the problem to its followers and changed its Twitter password as a precaution. The department also received some calls about it.
Umstead said he didn’t know if anyone had given personal information as a result.
He acknowledged that the message about “taping” could be alarming, given that it appeared to come from police and the city’s camera system.
“The fact that it comes from a police account obviously makes it a little more interesting or concerning. ... (But) we would never, never send anything like that on Twitter or elsewhere,” Umstead said Monday.
The department has been on Twitter since September and has 58 followers. About one-third of them appear to be journalists.
Umstead said police have been using Twitter more often in the past month, in part because the department recently updated its website, http://lancasterpolice.com.
The overhaul makes communicating easier, he said.
With the old website, Umstead said, news releases and general information had to be posted to the website, and then separately to Facebook, Twitter and an RSS feed.
Now when he posts to the website, it automatically goes to Twitter and Facebook and the RSS feed.
“It’s more ways for us to get out information, but the downside of that is it’s the Internet. There’s bad people out there,” Umstead said.
Umstead said he noticed a jump in “likes” of the department’s Facebook page after the revamp.
“We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback,” he said. “I’d like to think we’re pretty progressive.”
The department has taken social media cues from the Philadelphia Police Department - where Chief Keith Sadler worked - and the Baltimore Police Department, where Umstead said he spent a day with its public information unit gathering ideas.
Copyright 2012 Lancaster Newspapers, Inc.