Our Ethos

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The Internet is now the primary conduit for human data exchange with over 2 billion people using it to publish, find and store information. As an open source for data, it presents an unprecedented opportunity for public bodies, for example the police, to gather information on matters such as radicalisation. The value of open-source information, particularly that found online, in this context is obvious, allowing the speedy and accurate assessment of activities that may involve groups and individuals that engage in radicalisation. Furthermore, social media is the largest, richest, and most dynamic evidence base for human behaviour, and brings new opportunities to understand groups, movements and society. Social media analytics – the automated collection and analysis of millions of people talking and arguing with one another – has already revolutionised marketing and advertising.  

However, alongside this opportunity lies a threat that valuable intelligence, vital for accurate and timely assessment, will be drowned in the ‘data deluge’. Every minute at least 100,000 tweets are sent, 48 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube, and 571 new websites are created. How should public bodies deal with this data? Most turn to popular search services such as Google, which handles around 2.3 million searches per minute,  but the digital world is saturated by Search-Engine Optimisation (SEO) and multitudinous other commercial manipulations of the available data. There is a very real danger that relevant open source information material will be obscured by the floods of irrelevant, inaccurate or misinterpreted information, leaving a vital capability gap in the delivery of timely intelligence assessments. So, it is vital actively and consciously to work to make sure that exploitation of these open source resources is extensive, robust and accurate. More importantly, the question of how such exploitation can be conducted ethically, is one that has not been resolved yet and much more work needs to be carried out on this question so that public bodies can operate with the consent of their public.