Several countries across the globe are engaged in a constant battle against terrorism. Thanks to technology, it has become harder for terrorists to wage their dirty war. Many technologies are currently being used to track and identify terrorists before they can execute their plans.
One of these technology platforms is Big Data that has capabilities to process voluminous amounts of data in the shortest possible time. Earlier, it was not possible to use large data sets to arrive at definitive conclusions. Big Data can not only handle large volumes of data, but can also process data coming in at great velocity and variety. Here’s a look at how Big Data is helping fight terrorism.
Processing text, audio / video inputs – Considering the huge number of phones and CCTV in use globally, tracking potential terrorists can be a great challenge for authorities. Here, the need is to identify a suspect quickly before they can execute their plans. If done through traditional software systems, it could take several days or weeks. On the other hand, Big Data can do the same within seconds or minutes.
Identifying money laundering activities – Terror activities are often funded through laundered money. The funds may have gone through several firms and individuals before they reach the terrorists. Considering thousands of transactions that may need to be investigated and several others in real-time, it’s only with Big Data that authorities can make it work. Drying up the source of finance is an effective method for curbing terror activities. Such sources can be identified with Big Data.
Pattern identification – Terror groups are just like any other organization with established processes and protocols. Big Data can analyze past terror attacks to come up with patterns associated with it. These patterns can later be used to identify a potential terror attack being planned. Pattern identification can involve various parameters such as financial transactions, online activities, cross-border communications, movement of specific goods and consignments, etc.
AI and Machine Learning – As terrorists may try to change their patterns, Big Data can be integrated with advanced AI and machine learning systems to fit the missing pieces of the puzzle. Structure and functioning of terror groups takes time to build, and not everything can be changed to avoid detection. Working with machine learning, Big Data can predict new ways in which terror groups may be trying to execute their plans.
Risk projection – Based on past terror attacks and other related data sets, Big Data can evaluate terrorism risk level on a particular day for a specific area, location or city. With accurate risk projection, authorities will have adequate time for counter-terrorism measures. Based on the inputs, security arrangements can be increased at that specific location to prevent possible terror attacks.
Big Data and open source intelligence – A game-changer for counter-terrorism.
The threat from terrorism continues to present a clear and present danger to many communities across the world. The suicide bombing sin Turkey on 28th June which killed 41 people at the Ataturk international airport in Istanbul, and the series of deadly bombings in Baghdad and Iraq during July, the string of attacks in Saudi Arabia recently, provides further evidence that more must be done to identify the early signs and weak signals of attack planning to prevent further terrorist atrocities.
Bridging the gap.
Since before the advent of advanced technological means of gathering information, Law Enforcement Agencies LEAS have planned, prepared, collected, and produced intelligence from publicly available information and open sources to gain knowledge and understanding in support of preventing terrorism and pursuing terrorists. In today’s interconnected and interdependent world, contemporary terrorism increasingly involves cross-border and transnational dimensions, being amplified by the Internet, online social networks and smarter mobile communications.
Social and technical innovations are now occurring at an ever-increasing speed, causing fast and drastic changes to society. These changes, driven by the possibilities offered by new and emerging technologies, have been embraced by terrorist groups to support their recruitment, propaganda and attack planning. To counter the terrorist use of new technologies, LEAS have been forced to keep up and to do so, have tapped into an increasingly rich source of information that is gathered from publicly available information known as Open Source Intelligence O S I N T.
LEAS have come to learn that if they are to have any kind of impact upon combatting terrorism, it is essential for their efforts to be increasingly intelligence-led. At its simplest, ‘intelligence-led’ conveys the relatively obvious notion that LEA activity – whether focused upon local community aspects of policing, the investigation of crime or public order – should be informed and directed rather than undertaken randomly.[i] An intelligence-led approach to LEA activity also serves to support the evidence-gathering of police investigators and detectives to achieve successful prosecutions.[ii]For the LEA practitioner, and especially those engaged in specialist intelligence-gathering and intelligence development roles, intelligence is not so much a way of working as a way of thinking.
Such is the importance of intelligence to LEAS success is that, It has become a holistic discipline to which the whole of an LEA contributes and in which all officers and staff have a role to play directly or indirectly.[iii] An intelligence-led approach to policing and security is therefore not just something that the intelligence unit or the proactive investigation unit within an LEA undertakes – intelligence-led policing demands that the whole organization undertakes or supports this vital function.
Command and control.
O S I N T is being extensively used by local and national LEAS, intelligence agencies and the military. Given the scale, accessibility and high yield of intelligence return for minimum resource, O S I N T compliments and increasingly corroborates and confirms other traditional LEA intelligence functions, all of which are relevant operational reasons as to why O S I N T has quickly become a rich source of information to disrupt and detect the modern terrorist. O S I N T is the intelligence discipline that relates to intelligence produced from ‘publicly available information that is collected, exploited, and disseminated in a timely manner to an appropriate audience for the purpose of addressing a specific intelligence and information requirement’. O S I N T is also intelligence developed from the overt collection and analysis of publicly available and open-source information which is not under the direct command or control of government authorities and is derived from the systematic collection, processing and analysis of publicly available information in response to intelligence requirements.
Unlike other intelligence collection disciplines such as Human Intelligence HUM INT or Signals Intelligence S I G N I T, O S I N T is not the sole responsibility of any one single government agency. But instead collected by the entire LEA community. One advantage of O S I N T is its accessibility, although the sheer amount of available information can make it difficult to know what is of value. Determining the data’s source and its reliability can also be complicated and problematic. O S I N T data therefore still requires review and analysis to be of use to LEA decision makers, and must be appropriately processed alongside intelligence gathered from other collection methods.
Big Data Analytics.
An important aspect of LEAS use of O S I N T is social media, which represents an increasing and fundamental part of the online environment in which the users are authors of the content who do not passively receive information, but they create, reshape and share it. In some cases, the interaction among users based on social media creates communities and virtual worlds, providing an excellent source of information for LEAS.
Although there are significant differences in the nature of these outputs, two aspects are always present and are relevant to the work of LEAS : large amounts of information and user-generated content. The social media platforms aggregate huge amounts of data generated by users, which are in many cases identified or identifiable. When combined with other online and stand-alone datasets, this contributes to create a peculiar technological landscape in which the predictive ability that is Big Data Analytics BDA has relevant impact for the implementation of social surveillance systems.
Big Data is an evolving term that describes any voluminous amount of structured, semi-structured and unstructured data that has the potential to be mined for information. Big Data can be characterized by 3Vs: the extreme volume of data, the wide variety of types of data and the velocity at which the data must be processed. Big Data is nothing new, but it is currently at the final stage of a long evolution of the capability to analyze data using computer resources, which for LEAS is an excellent opportunity to tackle terror and keep communities safe.
Big Data represents the convergence of different existing technologies that permits enormous datacenters to be built, creating high-speed electronic highways and having ubiquitous and on-demand network access to computing resources, which are more commonly referred to as ‘cloud computing’.[iv] These technologies offer substantially unlimited storage, allow the transfer of huge amounts of data from one place to another, and allow the same data to be spread in different places and re-aggregated in a matter of seconds. All of these resources permit a large amount of information from different sources to be collected, and the petabytes of data generated by social media represents the ideal context in which BDA can be used.
The whole dataset can be continuously monitored by analytics in order to identify emerging trends in the flows of data and obtaining real-time or nearly real time results in a way that is revolutionary. Within the context of counter-terrorism, the availability of these new technologies and large datasets provides a competitive advantage, representing the greatest opportunity to increase the effective delivery of counter-terrorism.
Big Data can help the identification of terrorist networks and their associations using O S I N T and provide valuable corroboration of other intelligence sources to support the holistic development of intelligence. It can also rapidly support the identification of radical roots within online communities providing significantly increased capabilities and opportunities not just to prevent terrorist attacks, but to identify attack planning activity and most importantly, spot the early signs and signals of radicalization and recruitment to stop violent and extremist development at source – this is a game-changer for counter-terrorism.
Future challenges.
The world is being reinvented by open sources. Publicly available information can be used by a variety of individuals and organizations to expand a broad spectrum of objectives, and LEAS are increasingly making effective use of this free and accessible source of information. While the internet and online social networks have positively enriched societal communications and economic opportunities, these technological advancements have changed – and continue to change – the very nature of terrorism, serving to breed a new sophisticated and technically capable terrorist.
Significant changes in counter-terrorism practices have also been made. Counter-terrorism is no longer the hidden dimension of statecraft. It has over recent years moved out of the shadows due in part to the understanding by LEAS and intelligence agencies that not all counter-terrorism measures need to be cloaked in secrecy in order for them to be effective. Harnessing the power of O S I N T via BDA capabilities presents a unique opportunity for governments to address the increasing threats from international terrorism at relatively low cost. But the handling of such large data-sets raises acute concerns for existing storage capacity, together with the ability to share and analyze large volumes of data.
LEAS must also ensure that their access and use of publicly available information is within national and international legal frameworks. Which provides legitimacy and confidence that open source information is being used appropriately. The accessibility of O S I N T and the introduction of BDA capabilities will also require the rigorous review and potential overhaul of existing intelligence models and associated processes to ensure all in authority are ready to exploit BDA or O S I N T .
LEAS and intelligence agencies will continue to prevent further terrorist atrocities, but there is a very strong likelihood that they will not stop them all. In the light of that conclusion, all in authority must dedicate themselves to increasing counter-terrorism capabilities and developing new approaches to better protect the public. To ignore or dismiss the positive benefits of O S I N T would be both misplaced and unwise, as all citizens expect the LEAS and intelligence agencies of their governments to take the necessary steps to keep them safe. Harnessing the power of O S I N T via BDA continues to be a game-changer for counter-terrorism policy-makers, professionals and practitioners. Given the scale and complexity of the threats from international terrorism, intelligence agencies must continue to advance counter-terrorism measures to keep us all safe; and most importantly, seek new ways in which to embed progressive developments to ensure that the primary driver for change in counter-terrorism practice is not simply the next terrorist atrocity.
[i] The Investigation, Community and Partnership (2008) Oxford: Oxford University Press
[ii] Ratcliffe, J Intelligence-Led Policing, (2008) Devon: Will an Publishing
[iii] Har field C & Har field K, Intelligence: Investigation, Community and Partnership (2008) Oxford: Oxford University Press
[iv] Akhtar, B Bayerl, S Saath off, G Application of Big Data for National Security, A Practitioner’s Guide to Emerging Technologies London:Elsevier 2015.
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