NFL scouts are using Facebook to evaluate draft picks

The NFL is employing a tactic already used by many employers in getting the skinny on job applicants: checking out the social networking profiles of potential draft picks.But they’re doing it in a rather interesting and some might argue unethical way. NFL personnel are setting up Facebook (Facebook reviews) profiles that look to be that of an attractive woman. From there, they send friend requests and messages to the players they are evaluating.



If the unsuspecting future
NFL star accepts it, suddenly, the teams evaluating them have access to their personal information and photos, which, could raise all sorts of questions about the athlete if they have anything unflattering in their profile.



Yahoo! Sports has all of the juicy details on the practice, noting that “creating fake profiles to get added to the private pages of some draft picks – isn’t isolated. Executives from three NFL teams admitted that at one point or another, they had used a similar method to get information. And all three suggested that it was something that was likely used by the investigative sources of all teams.”

What type of results has this type of lurking obtained for teams? Yahoo! Sports notes a few examples, including one where a prospect had pictures of drugs attached to social networking profile. Of course, like other celebrities, top athletes are photographed wherever they go, which has often led to embarrassment surfacing on the Web for everyone to see.



The bottom line is that while this feels like a huge invasion of privacy, it’s to be expected, and users – famous or not – need to take control of the tools available to them to keep unwanted information off the Web. That’s easier said than done for NFL prospects, some of who have probably been using Facebook long before they became public figures, but an unfortunate reality of the social web.