For information to be considered valuable, it must not be kept secret. Open source information is information that a person publicly shares online. Open source information is critical in giving information to the national security community at a minimal cost. The open data is derived from the Internet, mass media, journals, photographs, and geospatial data (Perry, 2013). It enables law enforcement agents to investigate people's or suspected' lives. This information might either rule a suspect out of the crime or implicate him in it. It is dependent on the defendant's participation in social media. Some people monitor the movement of other people wherever they go. This means that they can still incriminate an individual who is innocent. Other people have dormant social media accounts, and thus their open source information cannot be depended on by the law enforcement agencies because information is never provided. The value of open source information depends on the activeness of the suspect in the social media.
Violence helplines are essential for law enforcement officials. According to Pew study, 65% of the American adults use the social media; this means that people have a social profile containing their professional and personal information. Organizations, which protect citizens from domestic abuse and sexual harassment for women and children often use the social media to get information (Pearce, 2013). This information helps them identify, monitor and prevent these situations before they happen. Information from the helplines can be used in several ways. Firstly, it can be applied from a tactical standpoint to help identify the urgent cases and secondly, it can use from a strategic point of view to categorize the growing trends and occurrences of functional interest. The open source information applications can be able to understand the different meanings in the text content in abbreviations, vernacular and acronyms. Thus, they offer high efficiency when identifying information of interest (Omand, Bartlett & Miller, 2012). Moreover, online counterfeiting helps extract the vital information contained in postings such as brand, email, and phone number and vendor alias. Anti-counterfeiting activities can cause economic damage in a country because consumers are not aware of what they are buying. Data obtained from the OSINT applications are compared to identify any features of a counterfeit product. The law enforcement agencies use this information to arrest criminals before they sell these products.
Law enforcement officials should evaluate the credibility of the open source track before agreeing with the information provided. They should ensure that the source is credible and that it has a license. Additionally, law enforcement agencies should consider the platform's commitment to open standards (DiMaggio, 2013). If an organization chooses an open source, which does not have open standards, it risks vendor lock-in. The vendors should also be committed to supporting services and innovation. Good open sources know the significance of providing support services and the need to distribute value-added software.
Police can lawfully use dishonest or deceitful means to access social media information. In most cases police look at the information available in the public online websites before deciding to investigate a situation. For example, police can create false online identities on Facebook and befriend a suspect with the aim of viewing their private information. If the information is suspicious, the police can request for the user's information for further investigation. Some countries have adopted these techniques to curb cyber security.
References
DiMaggio, C. (2013). Introduction. In SAS for Epidemiologists (pp. 1-5). Springer New York.
Omand, D., Bartlett, J., & Miller, C. (2012). Introducing social media intelligence (SOCMINT). Intelligence and National Security, 27(6), 801-823.
Pearce, J. M. (2013). Open-source lab: How to build your own hardware and reduce research costs. Newnes.
Perry, W. L. (2013). Predictive policing: The role of crime forecasting in law enforcement operations. Rand Corporation.
