Critical success factors for OSINT Driven Situational Awareness

A critical element of successful intelligence-led law enforcement operations is the ability of the police and other security services to obtain timely, reliable and actionable intelligence concerning the problem, incident or investigation under focus. As well as traditional investigative techniques and information sources, open-source intelligence (OSINT) can provide additional capabilities for Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) to manage an investigation or address the intelligence requirements of a given incident. This position paper introduces the concept of OSINT, identifies and discusses existing effective practices and critical success factors for the fusion of OSINT with traditional intelligence sources. This paper is written as a position piece based upon CENTRIC operational involvement in 14 UK based LEA open source investigations over the years 2015 to 2017.