In 2023, open-source intelligence (OSINT) played a vital role in alerting authorities to public safety concerns at various public events. At these events, the use of OSINT either prevented or mitigated widespread panic or violence that could have resulted in property destruction, injuries, and the loss of life.
Burning Man, a festival that annually occurs in a remote area of the northern Nevada desert encountered several unexpected challenges during the event week. Prior to the event, local Tribal rangers responded to protestors blocking traffic with a makeshift blockade. A Tribal ranger drove his truck through the makeshift blockade and drew his firearm on the protestors, drawing criticism and allegations of excessive force.
Videos posted online not only recorded the controversial interaction between protestors and tribal rangers, but also contentious interactions between protestors and upset drivers stuck in the traffic jam. Later that week, thousands of festival goers were forced to shelter in place due to unprecedented rainfall causing flooding and heavy mud conditions. This caused delays to emergency responders, including the death of an event attendee.
Misinformation also spread quickly on social media regarding an Ebola outbreak at the event, which was not true, but caused unnecessary panic. Even unplanned events can be mitigated with the use of a platform that is custom-tailored to gather open-source web intelligence.
In August 2023, a social media influencer with a following of over 6.5 million, announced that he was hosting a giveaway in Union Square, New York City. Thousands of people gathered and created stress on police resources and the local community. Sixty-five people were arrested and both attendees and police officers were injured. The use of OSINT in this situation accelerated public safety awareness and response to an unruly crowd that could have escalated into violence.
Special events impact communities
There are many types of events that occur in a local jurisdiction. Special events provide a local city, town, or county with an opportunity to interact with the public, fostering inclusive, welcoming communities. Special events are vital to a thriving local economy, bringing neighborhood residents and visitors together to provide community engagement and a holistic quality of life.
In a perfect world, community members assume that when they attend an event in their communities, they will be safe. They believe that the local jurisdiction, small or large, has provided ample law enforcement planning and security to ensure safety during the entirety of the event.
However, such events can be negatively affected by various challenges ranging from weather and overcrowding to illicit substance abuse and threats of violence. Once an event is threatened by a safety-related issue, the reputation of the city and the law enforcement agency can become tarnished. Community members and out-of-town visitors may not be as eager to attend another event in that area.
This can affect the economy of a community by removing revenue opportunities from the jurisdiction. Law enforcement can be directly affected by the decrease in funding available from the city. As part of the process of preparing for events – planned and unplanned – it is imperative to include the research of publicly available data.
This white paper will explore how to include Open- Source Intelligence (OSINT) as an integral part of the special event planning process.
Open source research for special events
Detailed planning of security operations before, during, and after a special event, regardless of size, is crucial to local law enforcement’s ability to conduct a successful event and ensure community safety. Even the most comprehensive plans need to be altered when intelligence indicates potential threats.
Since many threats are often made through digital technology, Open-Source Intelligence can play a significant and crucial role in identifying potential threats to special events. The term Open-Source Intelligence, known as OSINT, originated as a defence-oriented term and has been used by the Intelligence Community for decades.
OSINT involves the application of gathering open-source data found through publicly available sources and using it to provide valuable, actionable intelligence. Data from the surface, deep, and dark web used to generate OSINT are public sources that can identify potential security threats.
Such open sources include websites, blogs, images, videos, news media, and social media. Mining and analysing open-source data on potential bad actors, illicit activities, and vulnerabilities can provide compelling intelligence and actionable information to a special events operations team.
Using OSINT in the event planning process
While many special events use corporate or private security to ensure events are safe, if an event becomes dangerous, it is often the local law enforcement authorities that are held accountable. Well-executed events are the results of thorough planning and preparation.
Even with recurring events, the current climate and elements influencing an event dictate that a planning template may not be feasible. Using open-source intelligence generated from information across all layers of the world wide web can be integrated into all stages of the event planning process to ensure a safe and secure event.
Creating processes that leverage OSINT throughout the planning process can bring visibility into issues that need to be addressed early in the pre-planning process.
Pre-event planning
As a jurisdiction begins to plan for an event, open-source intelligence can assist in learning about individuals and organisations associated with the event and those planning to attend. For example, a concert that has a controversial performer may have superfans, anti-fans, and others who follow the artist for various reasons.
An analyst may also research the artist using social media tags and keywords around the artist – artist name, album names, and song names – to learn about the type of fan base that officers and security may be interacting with during the event.
When the agency gains knowledge through open-source intelligence, it is important to understand the relationships between the information gathered and how they may be connected. Linking together entities may provide an understanding of potential issues or threats that could appear at the event. This information is crucial to monitor until the very last minute before the event.
As the event draws closer, a jurisdiction may find that there is more conversation surrounding the event and it can provide an insight into the need for additional staffing, resources, or operational response. Open source intelligence allows a jurisdiction to scale as necessary in real time.
Many events have an operations centre that supports the monitoring of activity during the event to ensure a safe time for everyone. One of the activities during the operation should be the monitoring of digital sources using an automated platform as the event occurs.
By monitoring real-time information during an event, the operations centre can deploy resources to credible issues and threats that may be occurring. For example, the operations centre notices a social media post that someone is having a medical crisis and uploads a photo. The personnel monitoring digital platforms can pinpoint the location using the geotagged image and get aid to the person in need before it is reported to security.
The digital intelligence gained through continuous searches and monitors will allow officers to move faster in the transition from normal event operations to incident-response mode, if necessary.
Post-event assessment
After-action analysis is a critical step in the event planning process and is often overlooked or ignored. Reviewing lessons learned, strengths and weaknesses, and evaluating the entire process can be valuable to make the next event safer and more successful. This is also true in analysing the information found in mining the open-source intelligence generated before, during, and after the event.
Understanding the behaviours and activities of individuals and the collective crowd may provide insight into future events, especially if the event is seasonal or recurring. For example, information learned at a four-day festival may have found that there were several disputes and more unhappy posts at the end of the evenings due to poor signage at the ride-share pickup area. During the after-action analysis, this information can help plan for better pickup during the festival next year.
The benefits of online chatter surrounding special events consult with technology experts
Penlink helps organisations evaluate their OSINT capabilities and provides enterprises with hands-on training and guidance on best practices for integrating additional intelligence into existing analytical workflows. PenLink’s team of experts provides valuable insights into industry trends and emerging technologies to help organisations enhance their intelligence and investigative strategies to stay ahead of evolving threats for special events.
For more information and to read the white paper in full visit HERE.
Partner Content in association with Penlink.
