With any investigation, sourcing quality data is the foundation for generating insights and producing actionable leads. And in today’s digital age, there are few sources larger or more rich than the reservoir of data produced through social media platforms.
Between the collections of photos, videos, posts, and comments found online, publicly available data can be a gold mine of information when creating a case. However, finding the right information among the traffic of millions, if not billions, of users online can be difficult. Leveraging social media investigation tools, also known as OSINT technology, to do the heavy lifting for you can open the doors for a deeper understanding of the case at hand and a quicker path to finding resolutions.
Understanding OSINT Technology
Open Source Intelligence, or OSINT for short, is the process of collecting, evaluating, and analyzing publicly available information online. This information can come from TV shows, websites, public records, and many other sources including social media platforms. The term “Open Source” refers to information from public sources that is freely available to anyone. This means that it is completely legal for use in investigations, and can be a missed opportunity if not utilized in investigative work.
Social media analysis tools are not a requirement for finding this information online. Simply Googling someone's name and finding accounts associated with them can be considered Open Source Intelligence. However, modern tools can be a force multiplier for the effectiveness and efficiency of this process.
How Are Social Media Analysis Tools Used?
Social media analysis tools are currently used across many industries such as government departments, businesses, and non-government organizations. They can be used for a variety of reasons outside of just investigative work, including:
Background Checks and Due Diligence: Social media investigation tools allow individuals and businesses to conduct thorough background checks and due diligence on individuals or companies. This can include assessing their online presence, reputation, and potential red flags.
Brand Monitoring and Reputation Management: Companies use social media investigation tools to monitor their brand mentions, track customer feedback, and manage their online reputation effectively. This helps them address issues promptly and maintain a positive brand image.
Fraud Detection and Risk Mitigation: Social media investigation tools aid in detecting fraudulent activities, such as identity theft, financial scams, or insurance fraud. Analyzing social media data identifies patterns to mitigate risks and prevent potential losses.
Market Research and Competitive Analysis: Businesses leverage these tools for market research and competitive analysis. By analyzing social media conversations, trends, and consumer behavior, companies can gain valuable insights into their target audience, competitors, and industry trends to inform their marketing strategies.
Utilizing the vast amount of open-source data available through social media, platforms can be beneficial in a wide variety of ways. With actionable intelligence at hand, organizations can make informed decisions and stay ahead of potential threats.
Gather Information, Generate Intelligence
It is important to note that there is a difference between information gathered online and intelligence produced from those findings.
Say you search through Facebook for a suspect in an investigation and locate their friends list. This would be considered “Raw Data”. While you could pull some insights from analyzing their friends list for potential connections to others in the case, it would be difficult to generate actionable intelligence through this process. Additionally, manually checking through each follower and cross-referencing for a connection can be a laborious and painstaking process.
Social media investigation tools can help automate this process, quickly turning large sums of raw data into meaningful intelligence that applies to the case.
Go Further With Link Analysis
Many social media investigation tools streamline collecting and filtering online information. This process can be taken a step further, with analytic tools like Link Analysis software that quickly uncover connections between data points.
Link Analysis software visually displays case data, representing entities as nodes that connect to relevant information within the case. Large sources of information that can be difficult to analyze can instead be shown in a web of data points that can each be expanded upon for further clarity.
When used with data gathered from social media platforms, Link Analysis software can be a powerful tool for quickly understanding large volumes of data. For example, information captured from social media platforms containing comments, posts, and videos left by a suspect in an investigation can be cast onto a graph and compared with social media data from someone else present in the investigation. The Link Analysis tool will then intuitively display connections between the two, whether they have both liked a post, shared followers, or engaged with similar content.
Utilize Social Media Investigation Tools With Kaseware
Social media investigation tools can be a powerful addition to investigative work providing insights and actionable intelligence from vast amounts of publicly available data. With out-of-the-box capabilities from Kaseware like Link Analysis software, connections between data points can quickly be uncovered, leading to resolutions.
To learn more about the features available with Kaseware, click here to schedule a free personalized demo.