“Can they look at my Facebook?”

What is actually collected

Public posts, public photos, public friend lists, check-ins, reviews you left, and anything a mutual connection can see. This is standard, it costs the carrier almost nothing, and it happens early.

Private content is different. It is not simply available — obtaining it requires a discovery request, and requests to hand over an entire account are frequently resisted successfully as overbroad. But do not treat “private” as a synonym for “safe.” Privacy settings change, friends share things, and a screenshot travels.

What actually gets used

Not the photo of you smiling. Everyone in pain smiles in photographs, and that argument fails in front of a judge who has seen it a hundred times.

What gets used is a contradiction with something you said.

You told the evaluator you cannot lift your arm above shoulder height, and there is a picture of you reaching for a shelf. You said you have not been able to travel, and there is a check-in from a trip. You said the pain is constant, and there is a post about a good day.

None of those things is a lie. Injuries fluctuate, and one photograph is one second. But the record does not show the fluctuation unless you put it there — which is the actual lesson.

What to do

Do not delete anything. This matters more than everything else on this page. Deleting content after a claim is filed can look like spoliation of evidence, and the appearance of destroying something is far worse than the thing itself. If you would not want it seen, the answer is to stop adding to it, not to remove what is there.

Stop posting about your health, your case, your activities, and your employer. All four.

Tighten your privacy settings going forward. That is not concealment; it is ordinary prudence.

Tell your doctor about good days as well as bad ones. A record that says “constant, unremitting” is contradicted by an ordinary Tuesday. A record that says “variable, worse with activity, three or four bad days a week” is not contradicted by anything.

And tell your lawyer what is out there. Everything. The surprise is what causes damage, not the content.

The same logic applies to surveillance

Investigators film people. It is lawful in public places, and it is common in cases with high permanent disabilityPD Permanent Disability. Compensation for lasting impairment. A different and much lower weekly rate — 2026 maximum $290/week. exposure or a disputed work status. What that looks like and what to do.