Author(s): Ainara BORDES PEREZ
Publication name: Romanian Intelligence Studies Review
Publisher name: Mihai Viteazul National Intelligence Academy
Publication type: Journal article
Publication date: December 31, 2023
Pagination:
Issue/ Volume: 2 (30)/2023
DOI:
Abstract:
Open Sources Intelligence’s (OSINT) landscape has gone through a rapid evolution in the information era. Volumes of open-source information have never been so broad and high, and today’s technology is able to monitor interesting topics, contrast and match new data with old, spot early signs and discover previously unknowns, patterns and relationships at a level never seen before. This has not gone unnoticed by Law enforcement authorities (LEAs) and intelligence services (SISs), which, slowly but steadily, have embraced this new environment. OSINT is today exploited by LEAs and SISs for all types of intelligence needs, starting from (near) situational awareness, to investigatory and preventive purposes.
The rapid evolution has, nevertheless, created new, and exacerbated existing operational challenges. Assessing reliability against online data manipulation and disinformation has become a great challenge in the Internet era. While advanced technology is needed to extract and analyse the sheer volumes of data, measuring the outcome of these tools is not easy due to difficulties in traceability, pre-existing human and algorithmic bias, the institutions’ need for secrecy and the existing opacity around the vendors and their products. All those challenges can result in inaccurate OSINT products being later used for decision-making. Those, when used by SISs and LEAs, can affect by extension human rights such as the right to freedom from discrimination and the right to a fair trial.
This article analyses those operational challenges and their subsequent impacts on human rights. It does so by doing a comprehensive literature review on the topic through academic articles, national and international institutional reports, and newspaper articles. The study focuses on concrete problematic activities involving the creation and use of current OSINT products and describes examples that are not limited to one jurisdiction. Structuring both the OSINT operational challenges and their subsequent impacts on human rights is the novelty of this article. While some academics have addressed several of those challenges affecting advanced mining technologies overall, addressing the operational challenges and their impacts from a single focal point – OSINT, is novel. Addressing them in a structured manner is a necessary first step to carve up the landscape for a potential subsequent legislative evaluation of how to address those operational challenges and their impacts on human rights
Keywords: Open Source Intelligence, OSINT, human rights, Law Enforcement, Intelligence Services, operational challenges
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.