Every day, we are bombarded with information about a variety of issues: a new scientific discovery, the latest cyber attack, or reports about the use of chemical weapons in Syria. All this information is made available to the general public through sources in the public domain. Within the intelligence community, this public domain is also exploited: it is called open source intelligence (OSINT).
The domain of open sources entails, among others, official documents, newspaper articles, multimedia broadcasting services, but also data derived fromwebsites and social mediaplatforms.
This avalangeof information becomes even moregigantic by the millionsof individualpeople that sharewith us thedetails of their personal lives and exploits by using social media. This information that is sometimes of a very private nature is fully available trough the internet, visible for all and every purpose. Social media is hot. Most organizations and events have their own digital space, or are being discussed through social media. The phenomenon received a boost during, and in the after- math of, the Arab Springs.
This conference will reflect on how intelligence services can collect and exploit information derived from open sources and social media. It will also raise your attention to certain challenges like perception management, cognitive and social biases, data overload, and required technologies. The conference will also provide some practical examples on how social media can be used for intelligence purposes.
This conference features actors from Belgium, France, ... and the United Kingdom, representing the intelligence community , the military and the academic domain.