From the new revelation of finding food safety issues through the use of social media, Australian food safety officials are engaging with social media to discover places that may have breached food safety guidelines. Looking at the comments and reviews made by users on particular social media websites can help officials pin point particular offenders.
Australians using the local version of Yelp have reviewed more than 6000 restaurants and cafes and hundreds of bars and other food outlets. The abundant amount of reviews would greatly advantage officials in finding locations where there have been cases of food poisoning.
The NSW Department of Health, which manages complaints about restaurant hygiene from the public, said it did not use social media to research incidents of food-borne illness but the approach had merit. They will begin to adopt social media into their way of research in finding offenders. The first step taken by the NSW Health making use of online surveys as a method of using technology more effectively to identify outbreaks.
Victoria Health Department have not voiced their opinion on this matter.
For the article on New York City’s use of Yelp in fighting food poisoning,click here.
For more information in the direction Australia will take in using social media to regulate food safety, click here.