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EUROINTEL ‘99 Den Haag /The Netherlands, March 8, 1999 OPEN SOURCE INTELLIGENCE : THE INTERPOL EXPERIENCE. Philippe Lejeune Crime Analyst Analytical Criminal Intelligence Unit INTERPOL GENERAL SECRETARIAT. General Overview. ICPO Interpol and crime analysis
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EUROINTEL ‘99Den Haag /The Netherlands, March 8, 1999 OPEN SOURCE INTELLIGENCE : THE INTERPOL EXPERIENCE Philippe Lejeune Crime Analyst Analytical Criminal Intelligence Unit INTERPOL GENERAL SECRETARIAT
General Overview • ICPO Interpol and crime analysis • Open Sources and ICPO Interpol • Open Sources pilot project • Future / Conclusions
ICPO Interpol • Mission : “facilitating and developing international law enforcement cooperation in the fight against transnational crime” • Adding value to information to which it has access from a global perspective • Information is provided by its Member States [NCB’s] and stored in a relational database : ICIS
Sub-Directorate 1 • General Crime • Trafficking in human beings • Organized Crime • Terrorism Sub-Directorate 2 • Economic crime • Financial crime • FOPAC Sub-Directorate 3 • Drugs Sub-Directorate 4 ACIU • Criminal Intelligence ICPO Interpol Criminal Intelligence Directorate
ICPO Interpol and Crime Analysis • Centralized Analytical Function • Analytical Criminal Intelligence Unit : 8 Analysts and 1 Head of Group • All the Analysts are generalists • Project-based tasking in close collaboration with a Specialized Officer
ICPO Interpol and Open Sources • How do Open Sources contribute to Interpol’s criminal intelligence activities ? • Towards an Interpol Open Sources policy • Open Sources Pilot Project
ICPO Interpol and Open Sources • Open Sources allowfamiliarization with a specific crime topic • Strategic work in international environment • IPSG Specialized Officers, and particularly Crime Analysts, are inevitably confronted with types of crime and/or regions of the world which they are not always familiar with • Putting crime in its context
ICPO Interpol and Open Sources • Ascertain whether available confidential sources are representative of the real situation • Global perception of crime versus national perception • Open Sources allow to detect unreported elements and detect new investigative leads • Timeliness of Open Sources
ICPO Interpol and Open Sources • More specific requests instead of general questionnaires sent out to Member States • Questionnaires are time-consuming and the questions are roughly the same no matter what the subject is • Assist the Member States in developing their own Open Sources practices
ICPO Interpol and Open Sources • There is a need for a structured approach in order to : • avoid duplication through sharing of sources and methods (reference databases) • systematic use of Open Sources • clear distinction between classified and Open Source information • Take into account flexibility and/or limits of Open Sources
ICPO Interpol and Open Sources • Policy document drafted after horizontal and vertical consultations • Highlights : • legal : nominal information needs to be confirmed by the concerned NCB’s • organizational : decentralized, yet co-ordinated approach (by the ACIU) • tools / sources of information : Internet • output : diversification of intelligence products
ICPO Interpol and Open Sources • Who is involved ? • central role of the analytical unit [ACIU] • trained documentalists • specialized police groups • Who is responsible for … • collection ? • requirements definition ? • exploitation ?
Open Sources Pilot Project • Topic : illegal immigration and trafficking in human beings for sexual exploitation Methodology • gathering all available data from ICIS • comparative case analysis • collection of Open Sources aimed at filling “blind spots” in the available confidential sources
Open Sources Pilot Project Methodology • without open sources, the project would have ended as a negative feasibility study • Certain results....
Open Sources Pilot Project Open Sources provided information about : • used routes (International Organization for Migration) • profile of victims / offenders • why certain countries are more vulnerable either as transit or destination countries • Outcome
Conclusions • Open Sources data gathering and exploitation must be considered as essential in all domains of law enforcement and particularly in crime analysis • Underestimating the importance of Open Sources is unrealistic • There is a great in-house potential to exploit a wide variety of sources (e.g. access to a large number of languages)
Future Actions • An “awareness training package” should be developed in cooperation with all involved ; • Diversification of operational and strategic products ; • Exchange of best practices / new techniques in the widest possible sense !
EUROINTEL ‘99Den Haag /The Netherlands, March 8, 1999 OPEN SOURCE INTELLIGENCE : THE INTERPOL EXPERIENCE THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION